


Leave it Be

by Shame_I_Win



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Flashbacks, High School, Humor, Sibling Incest, Unresolved Sexual Tension, icest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shame_I_Win/pseuds/Shame_I_Win
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that. Originally a one-shot: Elsa wears pants. Anna is floored. Modern AU. Humor, angst, and sexual tension. Icest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Floored

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot turned two-shot turned "oh hey, a plot" and pulling over from my ff.net account. I figured I'd give this place a try.
> 
> In any case, the "present" storyline is in present tense and the flashbacks are in past tense. I have an unreasonable distaste for large blocks of italics. Also, I tend to bang out chapters for this story and post them without much reworking.
> 
> If I haven't scared you away yet, enjoy the story. The first chapter's pretty fun.

1\. Floored

Elsa is wearing pants. Anna is floored.

Her sister never wears pants—like ever, except for like gym, but that's like— And then Elsa shuffles around their shared room, in nothing but those jeans—God, Anna can't remember whether Elsa is wearing  _anything_ underneath. Who is she kidding? Of course Elsa is wearing underwear. The girl probably couldn't even imagine why anybody wouldn't. But the possibility that she might not—that she could be going...

Anna is not going to survive this. She hasn't even been able to spare a glance for those sleek white shoulders and the tipped globes between them. She's too busy being bowled over by those freaking legs wrapped up in dark blue denim. What the heck is happening? Why?

Elsa's not exactly a daring fashionista. The last time Anna saw her sister wearing anything without at least a knee length skirt was back in elementary school when their parents were still dressing them. When did her conservatively-attired older sister even get jeans? Regardless, Elsa doesn't look like she's going to be taking them off any time soon as she fumbles with a belt, her hands clumsy from lack of practice.

Anna is still floored. Elsa huffs lightly in frustration.

They're not even regular jeans. They're the really tight ones. The  _really_  tight ones. The ones that get narrower and narrower until they're practically gripping the lower legs of whoever has decided to stuff themselves in. The ones that even Elsa, for all her slender grace, would have to squirm and wriggle and pull her way into. Anna's brain nearly explodes at that image. And then she imagines Elsa trying to get them on after gym when her legs are sweaty and she's got both her feet in, but she can't quite pull the damn things the rest of the way up—

Anna's brain does explode. Metaphorically speaking of course.

It's a good thing they don't have gym together.

"Anna?"

"Mm—wh-what?" Anna feels like a fish yanked out of water, flopping on bottom of a boat.

Elsa furrows her brow—when did she throw that T-shirt on?—and gestures to herself. "Does this look right?"

Elsa's T-shirt—when did she even get one?—is half-tucked into those blasphemous jeans, her hands dangle uselessly from her shoulders, and her belt, though finally buckled, has missed two loops.

Anna is slowly picking herself off the floor. When she finally manages it, she's probably going to shove Elsa up a wall. And onto her thigh. And against her—

No! No! Bad, bad Anna. Make words for big sister. Don't f—

No more inner dialogue for Anna.

Elsa just stands there, not even trying to pose, looking so deliciously nervous—ahem, adorably nerv—No! She's just nervous. Just nervous. Oh God.

"Oh God."

"What's wrong?" Elsa tugs self-consciously at the hem of her shirt, looking down at herself. Small white teeth appear on her bottom lip.

"Nothing's wrong." Anna rushes over from her place in the doorframe to reassure her sister. "Nothing's wrong. Just—Here."

She takes hold of Elsa's T-shirt and jerks it out of her waistband. For just a second she catches a glimpse of alabaster skin, and it makes her entire body tighten with desire. She breathes it out with a sigh, not looking up at Elsa's face. "You, uh, don't really need this belt with these, uh, jeans." She starts unbuckling Elsa's belt and then realizes how, um, intimate this act could be.

Anna jerks back like her hands are on fire. The top of her head clips Elsa in the mouth and the blond reels back with a muffled cry.

"Oh God!" Anna says again. This time with more alarm than vertigo. She lunges for her sister, grabbing her by the elbows and hauling her back on her feet. "Sorry! Sorry! So sorry. I mean— I didn't." She pulls away slightly, checking a flushed face for damage. A short line of red oozes from a cut on Elsa's lips. "Oh, geez. I'm a moron. Sorry." She almost reaches up with a thumb to brush it away. Almost. She's not that stupid.

"It's alright," Elsa says quietly.

Simultaneously and swiftly, the sisters step back from each other, and Anna can take all of Elsa in. Blue jeans and a white T-shirt. God, why is it so much worse than Elsa in dresses? Anna is used to Elsa in dresses. Anna can handle the rush of seeing skirts swish beneath that neat waist. Really the T-shirt and jeans should been less of… an issue. The T-shirt doesn't even have a fancy neckline, only a simple circular collar, and the squeeze of those jeans doesn't reveal the pale ankles and calves that have been stealing Anna's breath since mid-May. But now that they're harder to see, Anna can't help but search for those stupefying curves. She just can't look away for fear of missing that moment when the T-shirt clings, just a bit to Elsa's torso as the girl turns to look at herself in the mirror.

Floor. Anna is never leaving the floor.

"Any reason for the sudden change in style?" By some miracle of fate, Anna's voice sounds completely cheerful and lighthearted. It's not like she was inches from ripping apart the uncertain fabric of sisterhood that stood between them. Again. When it was going so well this year. Nope. Nothing that climactic at all.

"Um, not really." Elsa continues tugging at her T-shirt as though willing to go down further. "I guess. I wanted to see what it would look like." She pauses, fiddling with her belt. The whisper of leather sliding out of denim belt loops sends a shiver all the way to Anna's tailbone, and she flops down onto her bed to conceal the fact that the her legs are no longer functional. "Hans said I should dress more casually." Another pause. "We're going somewhere tomorrow night."

Don't say anything. Just let it go. Let it go. Don't you dare say anything that's not extremely polite and absolutely bogus.

"That's nice," Anna chokes out.

Polite. Check. Bogus. Double check.

Pleasant and light. Elsa brings up Hans. Anna pretends it's nice. Both can perpetuate the farce of being happy, normal sisters.

And it  _is_  nice. It's nice sharing a room with her sister, who doesn't run to the bathroom every time one of them needs to change clothes, who doesn't flinch if Anna's gaze lingers just a little too long, who asks her little sister to help her with her outfit. Anna gets to hug Elsa now, and sometimes her sister even hugs back—all the way and wholeheartedly, not the trembling clutches followed by hasty retreat that have become so common over the last few years. And if Hans makes Elsa feel safe enough to do that, then Anna will grit her teeth and take it. She will grit her teeth and be fucking grateful for it. And she won't slice and dice him every time he so much as mentions her sister's name.

Even if she thinks he's a pretentious prick.

Not fair. Not fair. So not fair. But Anna can't help it. The guy is flawless. He's sincere and courteous and well-liked by basically everyone. He's nice. He's great. He leaves Anna absolutely no hope.

"I don't know how I feel about this." Elsa stares at her reflection in the mirror with trepidation. "It doesn't look right."

"You should put on a different shirt with those jeans. The shirt's too—"

—too plain to go with those ridiculous jeans. On second thought: "Actually, maybe you should try a different pair of jeans." Hans doesn't need to see those. "Hang in there!"

Anna leaps up and into her closet on the other side of the room, digging through stacks of pants and shorts until she unearths a pair of baggy, faded jeans from the middle of the stack. In eighth grade, Anna thought it was pretty awesome, walking around with jeans that were so long they fell down over her shoes. It took all of two months before she realized she was tripping over herself even more than usual. She's grown a little since then, and Elsa is even taller, so these should probably work for her.

"Here!" she calls out, throwing the pants at Elsa. "Catch!" It's already too late. Anna's jeans land on top of Elsa's head, mussing up the perfectly woven braid that pulls Elsa's hair back tightly against her skull. "Sorry!" Enough with the apologies.

"A little warning would have been nice," Elsa remarks crabbily, turning to face her with the garment still covering half her face.

Anna bursts out laughing. Elegant Elsa in a white T-shirt and those mind-numbing jeans, and with another pair draped over her head. Elsa's grin makes an appearance too, teeth gleaming. Anna loves these moments. Elsa instinctively suppresses every little giggle, deeming them too frivolous or vapid or unguarded. So when she does finally let herself smile, the action simply splits her face open, and the joy gushes out.

"Just change," Anna demands bossily, collapsing on her mattress with the petulance of a prima donna. Good. She doesn't even sound eager to see her sister strip. She's just going to lie here and stare at the ceiling, so that Elsa can be comfortable. Yep. It's going so well. Life's great. Everything's wonderful.

"How do I look?"

Does she dare?

Oh, God. Elsa in those casual jeans and that casual shirt that just sometimes folds enough to give Anna the suggestion of her curves. Elsa with her bruised bottom lip and her hair escaping from that braid lying against her shoulder. Elsa waiting on  _her_ , waiting for Anna's opinion on whether she looks okay or not when obviously Elsa is always so much more than okay.

Anna is floored.


	2. Mindreading

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that.
> 
> Another chapter of non-plot. Powered by angst and antics.

2\. Mindreading

"Hey."

"Yep."

Kristoff waits for Anna to buckle up her seatbelt before pulling out of the Arendelle driveway.

"So, I got Graveler to level 50 today," he tells her.

"Nice."

"I need to evolve him. Wanna trade sometime tomorrow?"

"Sure."

"So I walked into my room, and Elsa was just standing there in jeans." Anna doesn't know why she blurted that out, but it's the only thing she can think of to say.

"Really? That's… Really?"

"Yep." Then, feeling compelled to keep talking, she adds, "She didn't even know how to use a belt."

"What? How do you not know how to use a belt?" Kristoff's pale eyebrows disappear into his bushy hair. He seems acceptably amused by this particular anecdote so Anna lets herself relax. She's not obsessing about Elsa, just sharing a story with her best friend.

Yeah, right. It's probably a good thing Kristoff can't read her mind.

"I know, right? It was so," delicious, adorable, nope, "hilarious. I thought I was going to have to show her a Youtube tutorial." The two laugh, settling into their usual patterns.

"So why…?" Kristoff snickers, tilting his head.

"Apparently Hans wants her to dress casual for some date." Kristoff starts to say something, but Anna cuts him off. She doesn't want to waste a fraction of a breath discussing Hans. Prim, pompous, perfect…pig. "So yeah, it was totally like—" swoon-inducing, dementedly-hot, just-really-cute, "seeing the Queen of England in beachwear."

Her friend snorts, shaking his head. "You're so mean."

"No, I'm not! We're sisters. I'm, like, supposed to make fun of her. And compare her to ridiculous old women. You know, instead of doing…other things."

Anna cringes as the last two words leave her mouth. Please don't ask what "other things" are. Please don't ask what "other things" are. Please don't—

"Other things like?" Kristoff apparently sucks at mind-reading.

"Like-I don't know." What constitutes something un-sisterly which does not involve the actual un-sisterly things that Anna would like to do? "Shooting her puppy?"

"Elsa doesn't have a puppy. And if she did. It would be yours too," he points out.

Anna seizes this fact like a lifeline. She'll logic her way out of this if it kills her. "Yeah! Exactly! Because we're sisters! And since we're sisters, I wouldn't shoot her puppy. See? Only sisterly stuff."

"Whatever you say, feistypants."

Anna congratulates herself on ducking that missile. By now, Kristoff is so used to her odd behavior when it comes to all things Elsa that he considers it normal. It's such a relief, hanging out with Kristoff, even if she has to monitor herself whenever Elsa is brought up (but, let's face it, she has to do that with everybody.)

He's been her friend for so long, since they were toddlers. In middle school, they'd found their friendship split open at the seams as changing school dynamics forced them onto separate paths. Even so, by second semester of their freshman year, they had patched everything up with a few text messages.

Life flows smoothly with Kristoff. She doesn't worry about hurting him or pushing him around or doing something wrong. They have actual conversations that are not laden with tension, frustration, and regret. Anna doesn't feel like she's just survived a firefight but left an arm on the battlefield after every interaction with him. If Anna is struck by the urge to look at Kristoff, she is allowed to, and she has little trouble tearing her eyes away when appropriate. Around him, every moment is not an exercise in restraint.

They're best friends.

There's just one little catch when it comes to being best friends with Kristoff.

Rapunzel—Anna's third cousin once removed or something preposterous like that—waves them over to a pair of bowling lanes at The Alley Cat. She's seated with a dark-haired boy behind a bowling lane. "Hey. We had to get two lanes. Took you two long enough t—Aw, did Kristoff pick you up?"

Her boyfriend Eugene nudges her with a knowing shoulder. "Oh, now we know why you're so late."

"We're not that late," Anna grumbles. She hates this discussion. "And I was just busy when he came to pick me up."

Rapunzel is not easily put off. She tosses her head back with the grace of someone accustomed to having long tresses of hair to flip. A rather peeved Anna thinks the movement looks stupid since Rapunzel cut most of her hair off in a fit of teenage rebellion in May. Maybe her cousin senses her pettiness, because she refuses to let the matter drop.

"Go ahead. Say whatever you want. But the rest of us know that two of you are so getting married."

"We're not—" Kristoff cuts himself off with frustrated sigh.

Rapunzel snickers. "Sure you're  _not_." Somehow, she manages to make "not" sound like a synonym for "canoodling."

"Just how 'busy' were you?" Eugene pipes up, eyebrows wriggling like hairy worms. He's splayed across the seats like a self-important cat, one arm resting behind his girlfriend's shoulder.

"No one was busy!" Anna snaps.

"But you just said you were," Rapunzel points out cheekily.

"Not like that! I was—" imagining what it would be like to shove Elsa up a wall, "—helping Elsa get dressed."

Geez. Way to make it sound like she's sleeping with her sister.

"I mean, helping her find jeans." Anna wishes she were on the floor again.

"You mean to say  _his_  jeans?" Eugene winks, eyebrows undulating double-time. Anna splutters. She should be glad that her friends are so convinced the she and Kristoff are secretly in love. It keeps them from prying into other things. In truth, it just makes her want to strangle them.

The sound of pins clattering to the floor announces Merida's return from her throw. "Aw lay off it, 'Gene. Leave 'em be. And quit doing that with your forehead."

"Thanks, Merida."

"Even if they are disgusting love ducks."

"Hey!"

Kristoff and Anna stand stiffly sandwiched between their laughing friends.

"I hate you people so much," Kristoff mutters.

"I doubt that," Eugene puffs. "To  _know_  me is to love me."

Seeing it's now Eugene's turn to bowl, Anna snatches a bowling ball and hurls it, right into the gutter.

"Hey! You're messing up my score!" he cries out. His too-cool-for-school demeanor collapses comically as he lunges out of his seat, face sagging in horror.

Thus commences the wrestling match of the century as the two duke it out over the remaining bowling ball. Triumphantly, Eugene elbows Anna out of the way and strides forward to take shot, only to be tackled from behind by a fuming, red-haired spider monkey. Rapunzel and Merida egg them on, laughing uproariously at the ugly determination that sets Anna's face and the bewildered outrage that colors Eugene's attempts at self-defense.

THUMP!

The contenders simultaneously jerk their heads towards the sound of a bowling ball striking the lane. A smug Kristoff smiles grimly as Merida's ball (having just been returned to them) rolls right into the gutter. The computer adds two dashes to Eugene's score and switches over to Rapunzel's turn.

Anna lets out a whoop of victory and rushes in for a high-five. Howling, Eugene crashes to the floor in the bowling lane. His maudlin display of anguish is greeted by Rapunzel and Merida's taunts.

* * *

 

All in all, it's hard to say whose fault it is that they get banned from The Alley Cat—for life.

When she stumbles home with the crew in tow, laughing and out of breath, her mother casts a skeptical eye over them.

"You're not drunk, are you?" she asks suspiciously.                         

Anna, for lack of a better word, sobers up quickly. "No! We were just bowling." Leave it to her mother to assume that Anna and her friends are juvenile delinquents.

"Okay then." Her mother's eyes rove over the group one more time. She sighs. "Come in then. Are you guys just going to watch a movie?"

"We were planning to."

Her mother nods. "Food in the fridge. Popcorn on the top cabinet shelf."

"Thanks, Mrs. Arendelle," Eugene says with a flourish, all boyish charm. Rolling her eyes, Merida shoves past him, and leads the way to the Arendelle basement.

While she waits for the popcorn to finish, Anna finds herself cornered by her ever-intrusive, always-nosy, never-takes-the-hint-to-just-drop-it mother. "So how are things going with Kristoff?" Anna thinks that Lena Arendelle may be the world champion for most annoying faux-casual questions.

"They're fine," she grunts, desperately waiting for the popcorn to sound off.

"That's nice." The mother reaches for a mug from the corner cabinet and adds slyly, "Are you two dating yet?"

Anna whirls, face coloring. "We're not going to date!" God, why is her mother so desperate for her to date someone?

"So there's absolutely no chemistry between you two?" Her daughter's frustration makes no dent in the elder Arendelle's tactful serenity.

"No!" The popcorn begins to let off little popping noises.

"Well, that's just sad," Lena Arendelle does not bother to hide her disappointment. With all the worldly wisdom of a forty-eight-year old mother, she remarks, "You two need to move on." She pours some coffee into her mug.

"Move on from what?" Anna demands, jabbing at the button on the microwave with more force than necessary.

"From this. Meet new people. Find someone you  _do_  have chemistry with. Are you just going to do this weird codependency with him even though it's not going anywhere?"

Clearly Lena Arendelle is also the world champion of giving absurd advice in the same tone as she announces the weather forecast.

"I'm not getting rid of one of my best friend just because I don't want to date him! That's ridiculous!" Anna yanks the popcorn bag out of the microwave, burning her fingertips and dropping it onto the kitchen floor. Seething, Anna carefully picks it up by the corner.

"Elsa, what do you think Anna should do about Kristoff?"

Anna drops the bag. Again. Elsa is standing at the kitchen door with an empty glass, still dressed in Anna's old jeans and the white T-shirt. She flushes and chews on a bottom lip, not knowing how to respond to their mother's question Anna quickly bends down for the popcorn. As bad as it can sometimes get when she is alone with Elsa, , it is infinitely worse trying to keep her head above the  _lust_  which engulfs her at the sight of her sister when either of their parents is in the room too. Straightening up, Anna turns away on the pretense of getting a bowl for the popcorn.

"Um…" Elsa's voice trails off unhelpfully. It makes Anna's teeth clench.

"Oh, come on, honey. Your sister knows you only love her."

Does Elsa love her? The way Anna wants her to? No. They've been over this before.

Anna dumps the popcorn into a bowl and then swirls her fingers through them. She doesn't need to look Elsa in the face right now.

She couldn't if she tried.

"Well. Um," Elsa stutters hesitantly. For a moment, Anna is suffused by the warmth of her own love for her sister. She wants nothing more than to pull Elsa into a hug and press a kiss into a delicate temple. "I guess she should do what makes her happy."

The flow of Anna's love abruptly boils away.

_Cop-out,_  snorts their mother's arched eyebrow. Her lips echo in agreement.

_Hypocrite,_  snarl Anna's hands as they slam the popcorn bowl on the counter. Popcorn spills over onto the floor.

_Don't you dare call me a liar_ , says the stiff line of Elsa's spine as she fills her glass at the sink, ignoring the minor maelstrom behind her.

* * *

 

Anna and her friends trundle up to breakfast the next morning in more or less the way they arrived at the doorstep. Loud, rambunctious, and completely sugar high. Even Merida's usually steady hands are trembling a little from Anna's leftover Halloween stash. Sometime around 4 AM Eugene had fished it out from beneath the basement couch and coaxed her—ignored her violent protests—into sharing the entire garbage bag full of candy with them.

"Ohmigod. Your father is making pancakes," Rapunzel bursts out, seizing Anna from behind. "I LOVE pancakes." She releases her cousin to go bounce around her uncle.

"Your father makes the best pancakes," Kristoff states. His mask of tranquility is completely ruined by the jittery tapping of his fingers against his pant legs.

"Yep," is Anna's only response.

"Do you guys have whipped cream?" Eugene asks.

"Yep."

Merida gives Anna a funny look, and accidentally walks into the kitchen counter. "Fuck! Why the fuck do you have this-this-thing here?" Apparently Merida + sugar = profanity.

"Yep."

Anna doesn't know if she can do speaking on so much sugar, so little sleep, and the sight of Elsa in her nightgown. She's perched on a high chair on an island, carefully slicing her pancakes into triangular pieces. Anna's eyes dart feverishly from the bare curve of Elsa's shoulder to her pretty toes brushing against the chair leg. And then to Elsa's forehead. The swell of her chest. The tip of her little nose. The outline of her thighs against the skirt. Oh God. Anna's fingers practically beat themselves to death against the counter.

"Yep," she says to no one in particular.

"Good morning, kids!" her father calls out. "I figured I'd cook breakfast since I knew we'd have a crowd."

"Ohmigod! I LOVE you, Uncle Andy!" Rapunzel shrieks. Elsa and Anna wince simultaneously at the piercing pitch of Rapunzel's voice. Well, Elsa winces, dainty and ladylike. Anna leaps about a foot into the air.

While her friends crowd around her father who is dishing out finished pancakes as fast he can, Anna sidles up to her sister. God, she's nervous being around Elsa anyways, and the pound of chocolate she just ingested is sooo not helping. "G-good morning."

"Good morning, Anna." Elsa glances up from the breakfast which has been the object of her excessive focus. A small smile creeps up the side of her face before she looks down again, banishing it.

Anna is elated at the prospect that last night's encounter has not made their interactions any more awkward than they already were. She wants to reach out and brush Elsa's loose hair back from her forehead. She wants to push her fingers through the base of a blond braid. She wants to wrap an arm around her sister, wriggle her way onto the chair with her, and just—

She settles for poking Elsa in the stomach.

"What are you doing?" Elsa yelps, nearly spitting out a mouthful of syrup and pancake.

A sneaky grin crosses Anna's face. "I'm just—"

"Holy crap! The strawberries are SLICED!"

Both Anna and Elsa nearly have a heart attack. Rapunzel jumps up and down, clapping as her distant uncle heaps a spoonful of strawberries on her plate. Behind his back, Kristoff and Merida cheer for the puddle of batter on the frying pan, as though their moral support will change the rate at which proteins denature. Eugene, meanwhile, makes off with their plates and chocolate sauce.

Then, disaster, as Merida notices Eugene scarfing down  _her_  half-eaten pancake.

"Hey! You lout! What do you think you're doing?"

Plates, syrup, and pancakes go flying. Merida smacks a pancake into Eugene's face. Rapunzel screams at her for burning his face. The victim alternately reviles his attacker and reassures his girlfriend that his face is fine (while scraping syrupy pancake off). Just when it looks like a beleaguered Andrew Arendelle might regain control of the kitchen, Kristoff dumps the bowl of uncooked batter into Rapunzel's hair. He had been aiming for Eugene's head, but his accuracy was totally ruined by Merida yanking open drawers in search of a weapon. A full-on pancake fight breaks out, made all the worse by the fact that no one has turned the stove off. Eugene burns a palm. Merida clips him over the head with an egg whisk. Everyone is laughing, even Mr. Arendelle. This is the way Anna's friends  _are_. It's simply a given that breakfast cannot be conducted without devolving into a tornado of mock outrage and limbs.

Anna is completely mortified.

She sees Elsa's wide-eyed disbelief at the scene exploding in their kitchen and realizes how impossibly immature they all are. Why can't her friends be urbane and elegant? Why can't Anna be just a little more sophisticated? Maybe if she were less of a kid, less of a loser, Elsa might actually take her seriously. Anna wants Elsa to see her as an equal—worthy of respect and attention—, not the kid sister who always needs picking up after.

Elsa flinches as one of Rapunzel's strawberries lands on her nose. Anna reaches her breaking point. She does the least mature thing possible and throws a fit.

"STOP!" The entire room turns towards Anna, who glares daggers at them, chest heaving. "Can't you people just act  _normal_  for once?"

A crowd of faces gape back at her.

"Is everything okay, sweetie?" her father asked, concerned. Hurt leaks into Rapunzel's face. Disbelief in Merida and Eugene's. Kristoff is indiscernible. Apparently Anna's no better at reading his mind than he reads hers. She's not even going to look at Elsa.

Anna feels terrible.

"Uh, yeah. I'm just—I'm sorry." she retreats to the dining room, the silence towering behind her.

* * *

 

It's Kristoff who eventually finds her.

"I got my laptop out of my car. So we can trade."

The last thing Anna wants to do is pick her head off the table and set up a laptop, but she does anyways.

_I'm sorry,_  is the apology Anna's shoulders offer as they straighten up and reach for a charger.

_It's okay_ , murmur Kristoff's hands as they pull up a chair and open the lid on his laptop.

_No, it's not,_ is the pause in Anna's motions when she hears her sister's footfalls _. It's never going to be okay,_  is the secret meaning of her sigh at the sound of their bedroom door clicking shut.

But Kristoff doesn't get the message. He's a terrible mind-reader. So he just keeps repeating the same false declaration over and over again—in the way he types in his password, in the way he swipes his fingers over the keypad, in the way he offers Anna all the peace he has:  _it's okay, it's okay, it's okay._

He doesn't realize how oblivious he is.

Anna might even love him for that.


	3. Hit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No way. Did I finally raise the stakes enough to create the beginnings of a plot here? Wow. I can do writing.
> 
> Also, first flashback. Oh, the memories.

3\. Hit

It doesn't hit Anna until Elsa's graduation party on Sunday, and even then not immediately.

At first she's too busy ricocheting around the bounce house with Kristoff, plucking bare handfuls of chocolate cake when her mother's back is turned, and shooting Hans the usual glares whenever nobody is looking. Oh, and admiring Elsa's shoulders—because her sister is wearing a sleeveless dress for the first time in forever. This, of course, means that Anna has to work double-time with her annoying little sister routine since the possibility of Hans draping his arm over that exposed skin is absolutely unbearable.

Two hours in, even Hans's unflappable good nature is wearing thin at Anna's antics. So the fudge bars were a little sticky, and the interest in his great-aunt's marble collection a bit farfetched. And she might have left the hose blasting water at him slightly longer than she'd originally intended. But Anna couldn't be blamed if the sight of Elsa passing a hand over her mouth to hide her giggles was lethally adorable and somewhat distracting.

Unfortunately, Anna's last "harmless prank" has given Hans an excuse to take off his shirt and soak in the sun in the Arendelle backyard, revealing a disgustingly taut build that has Rapunzel whistling and Anna rolling her eyes.

"You're so stupid," Anna grumbles

"And he's soo hot." Rapunzel snickers, turning away from where Elsa and her friends are gathered to whisper conspiratorially with her irritable cousin. "Not that I'm complaining about my own man, but that guy is  _fine_. Seriously, how did your frumpy older sister land  _that_?"

"Elsa is  _not_  frumpy," Anna snaps. She doesn't like when people act like Elsa is anything less than stunning. Though she doesn't really like it when they notice it  _too_  much either.

"Oh come on, Ani," Rapunzel drawls, rolling her own eyes. "Like you don't remember the 'Snow Queen.'"

Anna jerks herself free from Rapunzel's grasp. "Don't call her that," she snarls, burning with shame. She can feel the lump in her throat at the middle school nickname.

God, how could she have been so  _stupid_  in middle school?

* * *

 

In elementary school, it hadn't mattered that Elsa dressed weird with all those floral print dresses and her hair twisted into an awkward bun. It wasn't so bad that Elsa was distant or spent lots of time staring into space instead of playing with stuffed animals. Kristoff, Anna and Rapunzel had been more than happy to spend their recesses chasing after the quiet girl, making her laugh and shout at them to settle down. Their favorite thing to do was to pretend that it was snowing and make Olaf the lumpy snowman out of woodchips in the playground.

Then, Elsa moved up to the middle school. She was still Anna's big sister when she got off the school bus, but for the first time in Anna's life, the sisters started spending large portions of their day apart. With these new arrangements, the fact Elsa never had her own friends over became more conspicuous.

Halfway through Elsa's sixth grade career, her parents were invited to a series of parent-teacher conferences in which Elsa's teachers expressed a growing concern that Elsa was simply not "adjusting well." Her mother and father always came away from these meetings with tired, lined faces. Elsa was quieter than ever, almost apologetic for the inconvenience she had caused. A few playdates were arranged, but none of them came to anything. When her mother confided that Elsa was having trouble making new friends, Anna was shocked. How could anyone not like Elsa? Yeah, Elsa was different, but a nice different. Kristoff's older brothers were always swaggering around, but even  _they_  had friends. Elsa was the nicest older sister ever. She never stole any of Anna's toys or locked her out of their room. If they did have a big fight, Elsa was the first to cave and draw Anna a picture of an ill-proportioned snowman on a piece of scrap paper. Who were these older kids at the middle school?

"Don't worry," fifth-grade Anna had promised, grabbing her sister in a hug without warning and burying her face into a bed of blond hair. "When I get to middle school, I'll be your best friend."

"That's sweet, Anna," Elsa murmured, leaning into Anna's embrace. "But I'm not lonely."

Anna was certain that she was lying. Elsa protested too much when their parents tried to get her to join a softball team. She would tell Anna stories in great bursts of speech, like she'd been holding them in all day. She'd claim she didn't really need  _people_ —which was fine, Anna thought—but Elsa didn't even seem to have a  _person_  to be with in school. So Anna took it upon herself to be Elsa's person, to the point where she was starting to annoy Elsa with her constant chittering. Deciding that their conversations didn't have to make sense so long as Elsa was talking, she set out on her Make-Elsa-Happy campaign with more energy than awareness.

"Do you want my pants?" Anna demanded.

Confused, Elsa looked up from her math homework. "No?"

"You know you want my pants, Elsa," Anna stated quite seriously.

"No, Anna. I definitely don't want your pants."

Eventually, Elsa took up strange hobbies, collecting pebbles and making her own ice sculptures. At first she was just chipping away at ice cubes from the fridge with a particularly hardy butter knife, making figures that almost, sort of, if you squinted a little, looked like people—half-melted people. Their mother had pursed her lips, consumed with the worry that Elsa grow into one of those  _special_  people. The family black sheep who were reduced to a few desperately optimistic lines in the family Christmas cards: "We haven't heard from Elsa lately, but we're delighted to know she's been blessed with a steady job now in Alberta. She's recently converted to Serbian Orthodoxy." Her husband, however, came alive at the chance that Elsa might be passionate about something,  _anything_. He sat at the kitchen table with her while she hacked away at her ice cubes, trying to understand his cryptic daughter. Every Wednesday night, the pair drove 40 minutes to the city of Weselton so that Elsa could learn from a professional sculptor.

Always the high-spirited child, Anna preferred to call Elsa away from her new hobby rather than observe it. She was always in the front yard, shouting for Elsa to play with the real ice (you know, on the ground) or help her beat the neighborhood kids in a soccer game. Sometimes Elsa would give up and stumble into the sunlight, and others Elsa would insist on finishing her latest creation. Anna considered her success rate acceptable. For her birthday, Elsa made her a foot high sculpture of Olaf the lumpy snowman, and Anna was completely enchanted. They kept it, with some of Elsa's other work, in a large freezer their father installed in the garage.

"We look like we're hiding corpses," his wife complained.

"They make her happy," he countered defensively. "What do you want me to do?"

"Help her make actual friends, and quit encouraging this antisocial… _behavior._ "

Anna was  _so_  excited to start middle school. She and Rapunzel snuck into their mothers' bathroom to try on makeup for the first time. They talked about boys, and Rapunzel's enthusiasm for this one stupid kid who kept trying to get everyone to call him Flynn Ryder was infectious. Anna even thought that maybe she could go to the sixth grade welcome dance with Kristoff. Mostly, though, she was just eager to be with Elsa again.

Then, she got to middle school. It was hard. At first, the bus ride seemed okay. She sat with Elsa in the front seat and was largely ignored by the rest of the bus. She was heartbroken to discover that she shared no classes with Kristoff, but surely she'd see him at lunch or recess. Of course, everything was going to be okay though, because this was a new school and time for new friends. She and Ella Cinders started chatting away in the back of the pre-algebra class. Ella, she discovered, was crushing on John Charming, a boy in seventh grade with Elsa. Engrossed as she was in their conversation, Anna almost forgot to look for her sister during lunch. Almost.

"Let's sit there," Anna suggested eagerly when she spotted Elsa alone at a round table.

"Are you sure?" Ella frowned. "Someone's already sitting there."

"Yeah, don't worry. It's just my sister," Anna replied, sailing towards Elsa. "Hey, Elsa. This is Ella from—whoa, you two almost have the exact same name."

"Hi," mumbled Elsa barely looking up from her food.

"Hi," was Ella's uncertain reply.

Despite the lack of warmth in either girl's greeting, Anna would not be intimidated by some awkward tension. "How's your day going?" she asked her sister.

"It's fine." Elsa glanced up from her food. A fleeting smile touched her lips, which went a long way in reassuring Anna once again that, of course, everything would be fine.

"Anna!" Rapunzel called out breathlessly, rushing over to the table. "Hey, Elsa," she breathed before turning back to her younger cousin. "Guess what. Guess what! Guess what!"

"What?" guessed Anna gamely.

"Flynn and I totally had a conversation in Language Arts! Did you know his real name is Eugene?"

"No way! No wonder he makes everyone call him Flynn," Ella chimed in.

The conversation flowed easily after that, at least between Rapunzel, Ella, and some of the other sixth grade girls who flocked to their table. Poking at her food halfheartedly, Elsa looked apprehensive and withdrawn. Anna pulled out of her conversation with the others to throw an arm around her shoulders, but Elsa shrugged her off. If anything she seemed more distressed by Anna's display of affection.

"So, are you new here?" asked one of Rapunzel's new friends kindly.

"No." Elsa's voice was short and colorless.

"She's my older sister," Anna declared protectively.

"Oh. That's nice. What's it like here?"

Elsa shrugged noncommittally. The table was silent. Anna was nervous. "It's like being cold all the time. And after a while, instead of shivering, you just turn to ice. And being ice is better than being cold."

Anna was mortified—not just embarrassed for Elsa, but embarrassed  _of_  Elsa as the entire table shifted uncomfortably. It really hit her then that her sister was  _weird_. She was the person at the table who unnerved everyone around her—who couldn't just be normal or cheerful or complain about regular things in a regular way like, "Man, that math homework sucked." She was the kid hunched over in the back of the classroom—like that kid who everyone called Hiccup. She was the two-sentence Christmas letter daughter.

Rapunzel broke the sudden chill that descended upon the group with one of her sunny laughs. "Did you know I got a new pair of Uggs?"

Anna knew that Rapunzel had done no such thing and didn't even like boots—the girl much preferred to prance around barefooted—and was grateful for the reprieve. She scooted herself closer to her sister.

"Are you cold?" she whispered, not quite knowing what Elsa meant.

Elsa seemed to have no such tact. She answered loudly, cutting off Ella's account of the time she snuck into her stepmother's closet to try on high heels. Her voice was bold, as though daring someone to contradict her. "I  _am_  cold. I don't feel cold. I  _am_ cold." Snatching up her tray, she stalked off to the trash can—Anna's total loner-weirdo of a sister. The table buzzed uneasily in her wake.

Anna could work with that though, because at home, Elsa seemed to relax a little. She still played soccer with everyone else, still climbed trees with absolutely no fear of heights, and still built anything Anna wanted out of ice. So she had an awkward alter ego at school. Anna could  _totally_  work with that.

On the second day of school, Rapunzel, Ella, and everyone else ended up politely sitting at a different table on the other side of the cafeteria. Anna thought she saw Flynn over there with some people she didn't recognize. But Anna shook her head, when they waved her over, and then pointedly plopped down next to Elsa again.

"Hi."

Elsa stared at her.

"How was your day?" Anna asked.

"It was fine." Elsa was still staring at her. The silence stretched on. "How was yours?"

A grin broke out across Anna's face, and she started babbling, "Well, Mr. Moriarty tried to yell at Adam for talking in class, but then…"

It was better with just the two of them. Elsa was less stiff. She did her giggle behind the hand thing. Anna didn't have to be embarrassed when her sister talked funny. In fact, Elsa didn't really talk funny without Anna's friends there. But it was still a struggle sometimes. Elsa didn't know or care about the classmates Anna filled her anecdotes with. She rarely said much about her own day, no matter how much coaxing Anna did. There was a disconnect between what Anna saw as important about school (friends, sporting events, and maybe that math final) and what Elsa valued (academics and achievement.) Anna knew without it being said that Elsa thought much of her daily drama was frivolous and stupid, and as much as Anna tried to hide it from her, Elsa knew that Anna's friends—along with the general middle school population—thought she was more of an eyesore than anything else.

Anna couldn't stop herself from looking over at her friends on occasion. They all laughed so easily. Their thirty minute lunch blocks were always too short, whereas Anna's felt like an eternity of dancing before an audience of sullen bridge trolls. It was exhausting, trying to get Elsa to open up and be regular-happy-Elsa in school. Maybe Anna was getting cynical, but regular-happy-Elsa seemed to be more elusive at home too. Anna adopted the burden of being the conversation starter stoutly, but she was running out of things to say.

"Do you want—"

"For the last time, I don't want your pants, Anna."

Yeah, Anna was talkative, but not  _that_  talkative. The more she watched her friends at their own table, the more she wanted to know what they were saying. She worried over what they were saying about her and Elsa. Surely Rapunzel would keep them from saying anything cruel, but Anna fretted anyways. She could pretend that it was because she wanted to be there to defend Elsa, but if she was honest with herself, she wanted make sure that no one was calling  _Anna_ Arendelle a loony shut-in who couldn't hold a conversation to save her life.

"You should sit with them," Elsa insisted, about two weeks into the start of the year.

"What? No!" Guilt rose up to Anna's face. She'd been caught—doing what exactly? Cheating on Elsa? "I want to be here with you, Elsa."

"No, you don't," Elsa maintained serenely. "Go be with your friends."

"Yes, I do," Anna denied gentle accusation stubbornly. The fact that it was true made her repudiation all the more insistent.

Elsa laid a delicate hand on Anna's shoulder. "We'll still sit on the bus together. I'll still be there when we go home. Stop worrying about me. You're worse than Mom and Dad."

Anna gazed at her sister, almost reaching up to touch those blue, blue eyes. She didn't understand why no one else could see Elsa this way. Different, but not creepy. Infinitely selfless and loving. Sweet. It didn't matter if she wore old-fashioned clothes, Elsa was beautiful. Anna was struck by longing and wonder. It felt as if something were swelling against her ribs and chest. Lunging forwards, she clutched her sister in a surprise hug. "You're my favorite person in the whole world."

"I love you too, Anna."

The next day, Anna sat with Rapunzel and Ella and Flynn. But she sat with Elsa on the bus home. That was enough, right?

* * *

 

Storming away from Rapunzel and the rest of the party in a fit of self-loathing, Anna bursts into the kitchen, muttering to herself, "It's over. It's done. It's done."

She grabs a plastic cup and a gallon jug of chocolate milk and starts pouring into it.

"Hello, Anna-bean," booms a voice from the living room.

"Hello, Uncle Alex." Rapunzel's father and Anna's distant uncle is in the living room, watching a golf game with her father—or at least he was, until his companion passed out on the couch.

"So, are you excited to have the room all to yourself?" He rises heavily from his chair to join Anna in the kitchen.

"What?"

"You won't have to share your room anymore, once Elsa's gone off to college."

Anna hasn't given the thought that Elsa is leaving much thought. "Um, yeah. It'll be…" heartbreaking, lonely, possibly more painful than sleeping in the same room as her every night, "great." Realizing that her lack of enthusiasm is showing, she adds a bit of the truth. "I'll be sad though."

Her uncle nods wisely. Maybe the wine is hitting him. "I was just telling your father how much his relationship with you two girls will change. Not to mention, she'll hardly ever want to come home, and chances are, she'll never  _really_  come home again."

"What do you mean?" Anna demands alarmed. "She's only going to Weselton."

"I know, I know. But from now on, it'll always be a temporary stay—even in the summers. Before you know it, when she says, 'Let's go home,' she'll mean her dorm room, her apartment, and eventually her own house."

"But  _this_  is her home. We're her-" Anna can't believe she's insisting on this in light of how she feels about Elsa, "-we're her  _family_. She can't just leave us behind." Chocolate milk sloshes dangerously in Anna's cup.

"Well, yes, this is her childhood home. But eventually the two of you will grow up and get husband and families of your own. Don't worry your—"

Anna is close to hyperventilating. "Married! Who said she was getting married?!"

"Someone's getting married?" a bleary voice asks. Anna's father shuffles into the kitchen, his hair and moustache tousled. He goes to the sink for a glass of water.

Alex sighs. "No one, Andrew. I think your youngest is getting a little worried at the thought of leaving the nest."

Anna might be overreacting. Just a bit. She was definitely more than a little worried at the thought of Elsa leaving the nest. "He said Elsa was going to get married!"

Her father chokes and spits out his water in the sink. "Elsa is  _not_  getting married any time soon!" he squawks, his voice aghast and nearly shrill. Anna feels vindicated that at least there is  _somebody_  else who is as horrified by the mere mention of the idea as Anna is. He glowers out the kitchen window. "Did that punk out there propose to her or something? She better have—"

"No one is proposing or getting married," shouts Alex, exasperated. "You people need to get a grip. All I was suggesting was that eventually,  _in the future_ , Elsa, and Anna as well, are going to get married and give you grandchildren."

"Not any time soon," the girls' father mumbles under his breath. Anna is disappointed because for half a second she thought their father was actually going to rush outside and strangle Hans with his belt. Which would have been wonderful, if a little disturbing. Combing his fingers through his messy hair, he lets a crooked smile cross his face. "You'll let me know if Elsa gets herself mixed up in something bad, right? I know sisters like to keep each other's secrets, but if anything serious came up—"

"I'd be standing next to you with a pitchfork," Anna proclaims.

"That's my girl."

Throwing up his hands in frustration, Alex departs from the room, muttering about the violent side of the family.

* * *

 

Outside again, Anna watches Elsa laugh with her friends. It makes Anna breathe easier, knowing that Elsa has friends now. Mulan, the studious athlete. Belle, the modest artist—who's actually in the same grade as Anna and her friends. Peter the theater boy. And of course, Hans. The nice guy. Everyone's best friend. He was even nice in middle school.  _No one_  is nice in middle school.

Anna is convinced he is a complete phony. He has to be. He's even going to Weselton with Elsa next year.

That thought freezes Anna to the bone. Hans will be with Elsa all the time come fall. Anna will just be the little sister who never could. It's been Anna's sole crumb of victory, the knowledge that no matter how charming Hans is, Elsa will always come home to her. But when fall comes, Elsa won't be coming home anymore.

It hits Anna like a sledgehammer to gut, like a buffalo stampede to the rib cage, like a pair of pants to the face. This is her last real chance to have all of Elsa. When they grow up, Elsa will always be able to run, to move to another state, surround herself with other people, and avoid Anna at all costs. If Anna is going to persuade her sister that their love is worth the extra heartache, then it has to be this summer. Or Elsa will find another home for good.

It hits her like the first winds of winter: cold, painful, and thoroughly invigorating.


	4. Seduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anna gets cracking.

4\. Seduction

Anna is not very good at being alone. It's not like she's desperate for attention or anything, but when she goes on an adventure, she wants to do it with her friends. What's the fun in hatching, executing, and celebrating an evil scheme  _alone_? There has to be some convivial gloating for it to be worthwhile. Like when she and Merida first met in ninth grade, carefully redirecting stinkbombs to the hallway where the senior lockers were located. Or when she and Kristoff made their own Awesome Bike Ramp Spectacular in the woods behind his house. Or when she and Elsa hid in a snow fort by the front door to ambush their father with snowballs when he left for work. It doesn't matter that she and Merida ended up smelling of rotten eggs for the rest of the day, that Kristoff twisted an ankle, or that the sisters' and their snow fort were completely visible (and thus easily evaded) from the bay window.

Success is a secondary goal in most of Anna's endeavors. The true prize is discovering new partners in minor misdemeanors.

This is different. Incest is a felony.

This time around Anna can't tell anyone, can't mess it up, can't share it with her friends or family. Yeah, it's a secret she's been keeping for years, but now that she's decided to act on it, to chase after the forbidden desire, the burden feels suddenly huge. She wants to go to Kristoff and ask him to help her come up with a plan, but she can't.

She can't tap into Merida's extremely useful skill set. She can't rely on Eugene's enthusiasm for just about any covert operation. She can't break down on the phone to Rapunzel if something goes wrong. The only person who can know—who  _has_  to know, absolutely, beyond a doubt—is Elsa.

It's not like Anna can ask her sister to participate in her own seduction.

Seduction? Is that what Anna is doing? What does Anna even know about seduction? At seventeen, she's never even had a boyfriend. Elsa probably  _does_  know more about seduction than Anna, a thought which is simultaneously hilarious and sad.

Seduction and incest. Anna is destined for a bright future.

So yes, Anna is lying on her bed, waiting for her head to explode when—duh, the Internet.

Pulling a chair up to the desktop in her shared room, Anna furtively types "first date ideas" into the omnibox, all the while looking over her shoulder for any nosy mothers. Somehow she finds herself clicking through a Top 10 slideshow guaranteed to take the reader from being "like most guys" to " _the_  guy".

Bowling alley. Hiking. Aquarium. Theater. Blah. Blah. Driving range?

That's what Anna gets for going to a website called  _AskMen_. Maybe she should narrow her search.

She's about to type "first date ideas with sister" into the search box when she realizes that Elsa could very well look through her search history. Even if Anna clears it afterwards, she can't quite shake the paranoia that somewhere out there, a little man sitting in front of a master computer, eating a peanut-butter and banana sandwich will report her perversions to...to  _someone_. She can't even bring herself to type in "incest." Nervously, Anna settles for, "first date lesbian", cringing as she hits the enter key. Not exactly an agreeable topic for the dinner table, but infinitely better than freaky fantasies of her older sister.

This brings up an article on lesbian first date blunders which Anna reads religiously and immediately disregards. Well, she does store the advice to be decisive and not too self-deprecating as general reference, but most of the article feels geared towards making a good first impression. Anna has been impressing (or depressing as the case may be) Elsa for the last sixteen years. It's not like they need to play any get-to-know-you games. Elsa already likes her—right?—at least loves her as a sister. Anna doesn't need first date ideas; she can think of lots of things they could enjoy doing together—provided that she doesn't overthink it. But how the heck is Anna supposed to convert "sisterly fun" to "earth-shattering romance"? If it were anyone but Elsa, maybe the "first date" lists would be helpful. But Elsa is different.

Anna needs seduction.

She promptly puts her request before the Googles. Another Top 10 list, from the  _Independent_  this time. The British are charming, right?

Immediately, Anna can tell that the list itargets a brawnier audience, but she forges ahead anyways. The first slide tells her to look at her "quarry's" eyes, right up to the point of discomfort, and only break the gaze reluctantly. Sighing in relief, Anna scrolls down a little. She can do this. Elsa has pretty eyes. They're nice to look at.

The next tip recommends more looking, "A Visual Voyage" they call it, but Anna is unsure whether she should follow the advice for the girls ("Sneak peeks at his body—and when he sees you pretend you are a little embarrassed…to get his juices flowing") or for the guys ("Be wary. If your eyes travel too far south for too long you'll be in trouble"). Either way, Anna figures that the trick to seduction is to stare obviously without being a creeper. Anna can totally do that. It's not like she has subtlety issues or anything.

Anna keeps reading, skipping over "Expensive Dining" (maybe she should get a job) and wondering if she has any clothes which will satisfy "Dress to Impress." The slideshow recommends a scary movie ("a little shared danger is a proven aphrodisiac"), but Anna's pretty sure that she'd only end up embarrassing herself if it came to that. Besides, Elsa doesn't like movies.

A text comes in from Kristoff.  _What are you doing Saturday?_

_Flipping out_ , she responds without thinking.

Jesus Christ, Anna is nervous. So, so nervous.

Her phone goes off again. _Why?_

Seducing my sister.

_I mean nothing,_ she types.

* * *

 

By the end of Anna's sixth grade year, Rapunzel was frothing with excitement. "I can't wait for this dance!"

Anna, who had gotten braces a few months ago, was significantly less thrilled than her cousin. "Do we have to go?"

"Of course! Flynn is going to be there!" Rapunzel blushed at the thought of her crush.

"I don't see what that has do with me," Anna grumbled.

"It has everything to do with you. You're my best friend! And my cousin."

"You'll have a great time," Ella reassured. "Everyone will be dressed up and pretty. We can all go dancing. We'll even find you a date."

"A-a date?" Anna spluttered, mouth falling open. What was Anna going to do with a date? Did that mean Anna would have to kiss someone? Anna had never seen people with braces kissing in any movie or TV series.

"Yeah. We'll find someone for you to go with. I mean most of the guys are way too immature to go to a dance…" Ella lost herself in an explanation of the distinction between mature and immature boys.

"Then why in the world is Flynn going?" Flynn was a lot of things, but definitely not mature.

Rapunzel flushed and mumbled something.

Ella rolled her eyes. Anna knew that Ella thought Flynn was a little unrefined, but that still didn't explain the present situation. Why was Rapunzel convinced that he would be coming to the dance?

"Anyways," Ella continued, "everyone important will be going. All the seventh graders and eighth graders at least."

_Elsa's not going_. Anna held her tongue on that one. It wasn't that she was embarrassed of Elsa or anything, but sometimes it was easier to just not bring her sister up. Especially when Ella was talking about how middle school should be.

"Please, Anna?" Rapunzel wrapped an arm around her cousin's shoulder. "It'll be fun. I'll even get you your ticket."

For all their zeal, the majority of Ella and Rapunzel's efforts were wasted. Anna had little desire to dress up, meet all the "mature" boys, or even "have fun." Quite frankly, she couldn't see how any of what Ella and Rapunzel described as the ideal dance experience added up to "fun." But as much as Anna dreaded going, she dreaded even more the prospect of being the only one of her friends who wasn't going. What would she talk about at lunch next Monday if everyone else could only jaw away about the dance? Elsa was good at being alone. She made it cool. Anna sucked at it.

"Fine."

Anna grew increasingly anxious as the week wore on and Ella's insistence that she have a date by Friday became more…insistent. She really didn't want to be set up with whoever Ella could find, but her own attempts at date acquisition were just dismal.

Usually, she got as far as approaching a likely candidate with her characteristic optimism, only to clam up and become a bigger oyster than Elsa when she opened her mouth and saw him examining the metal wires that spanned her teeth. Her parents had assured her that no, the braces didn't look ugly, but Anna knew that there were some things parents had to say whether they were true or not. No one wanted to go to a dance with someone wearing braces.

Then, Anna remembered Kristoff. They'd barely spoken at all this year, sharing no classes or even a lunch together. The last time Anna had seen him was in December during her twelfth birthday party when her parents had invited him without even asking.

Of course they did.

He was Kristoff, Anna's very first friend, not to mention the adopted son of one of Northam's most important, if reclusive, council members. Andrew Arendelle, in his capacity as the city manager, worked closely with Kristoff's "Grand Pabbie" on a daily basis. Certainly Anna had no objections to Kristoff's presence. He was, however, the only boy—an awkward situation at any twelfth birthday party. Instead of playing Pin-the-Tail on the Donkey with her like they had done for so many years, he sat stiffly at the kitchen table with Elsa, watching Anna and her newly sophisticated friends chatted about their lives. It was quietly decided that maybe the next time Kristoff and Anna had a playdate, there should be a more balanced gender ratio.

There hadn't been a next time yet.

Despite the distance, Anna still considered him a friend. They hadn't had a fight or anything. Surely, Kristoff would never cringe at her teeth, and really, why wouldn't he want to go to a dance?  _He_  didn't have braces. Her fingers tapped out his phone number.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mrs. Bjorgman, this is Anna."

"Oh, hi dear! How  _are_  you? How's school? It's been so long."

"I'm good. How are you?"

Several minutes of silly pleasantries later, Anna finally heard Kristoff's voice on the other end.

"Hey." Her best friend sounded subdued and cautious.

"Hey." Anna beamed as though he could see her smile through the telephone line. Just as well he couldn't, what with the metal in her mouth. "Do you want to go to the dance on Friday with me?"

"Wait. What?"

"Yeah, well, I'm going. And I thought we could go together. I mean, Ella's been bothering me about finding someone to go with and you're my—" Anna paused. She'd instinctively started to say "best friend" but that didn't seem right given that they'd barely spoken for months. "You're my friend, so I thought maybe we could go together."

"Um." Kristoff's uncertainty made Anna uneasy. Where was the fun-loving, easygoing boy from her childhood? "I guess. I don't know. Let me think about it."

"Okay."

The silence was crushing.

"Bye," she finally said when it became clear that Kristoff wasn't going to be done thinking any time soon.

Feeling fairly pessimistic about the chances that Kristoff would actually go, Anna was shocked on Wednesday morning when a familiar hand tapped her on her shoulder. She whirled around.

"Kristoff!" Anna grinned at the sight of his familiar floppy blond hair.

In the face of her eagerness, his serious expression melted into a recognizable smile. "Hi. Where do I get a ticket?" He showed her the crumpled five dollar bill in his right hand.

"You'll go to the dance? That's great!"

His own grin stretched a little. He seemed shyer than the boy she remembered, but when he shook his head like an overgrown puppy to clear the bangs from his eyes, she nearly pulled him into a hug. She'd forgotten how much she'd missed him. He smelled like farm animals, musty and comforting.

Seduction was so much easier with Kristoff.

* * *

 

"Anna?" Anna jerks out of the computer chair at the sound of Elsa's inquisitive voice. "What are you doing?"

"Uh, nothing," Anna stammers instinctively as she tries to shield the computer screen from Elsa's gaze with her body.

Elsa narrows her eyes. "What do you mean 'nothing'?"

Mental facepalm. Way to give the most suspicious possible answer in the book. Will fumbling for the mouse and closing out of the browser only look fishier? Probably.

"I mean-well-of course I'm doing  _something_ -ahem." Anna clears her throat to buy herself a little more time. Her fingers are practically vibrating with nerves from almost being caught looking at lesbian sex advice websites—and oh yeah, with nerves from just  _Elsa_ —but goddamnit Anna will salvage this situation if she has to fake a seizure to do it. The seduction has to be perfect. No more embarrassing herself for the next three months. "But, like, of course when you  _ask_ , I have to say nothing, because…that's just what people do."

"That is not what people do," Elsa states dispassionately.

For god's sake, why can't Elsa be more like Kristoff? Willing to just brush off Anna weirdness as Anna weirdness. Easy to seduce.  _Not_  exploding all of Anna's neurons every time she walks into a room.

Elsa steps closer, obviously trying to see over Anna's shoulder onto the computer screen. Anna blocks her with her head, bobbing up and down like a boxer.

"Anna, I just—"

Anna grabs her sister by the shoulder and spins her around, giving her a light shove like a cartoon character. Elsa stumbles, and it's all she can do not to swoop down and catch her.

"Well, I'm different," Anna snaps with as much indignation as she can muster while losing sensation in her legs.

Her brain is ripped in half between oh-god-Elsa's-so-close-can-I-please-shove-her-up-against-a-wall and oh-god-Elsa's-so-close-and-she's-going-to-find-out-I'm-reading-about-seduction-techniques-and-avoid-me-for-a-month. Elsa tries to turn around and shoulder her way past Anna again, but Anna is ready, snatching at one of Elsa's wrists and trying to guide her out of their room—facing away from the computer at all times of course.

Elsa makes a noise that might be a protest, but Anna jabbers skittishly over her. "It-it's like when Mom is shouting to ask what I'm doing, and I say nothing…because I know if I tell her-tell her I'm playing Strike Force Heroes online she's just going to complain…that my brain is rotting—hmph."

A pause as Anna is forced to lunge for Elsa's other wrist to keep the girl from slipping away.

"Anna, what—" Elsa twists and nearly pulls out of the quasi-arm-lock Anna has her trapped in.

Anna cannot stop talking. Nope. Must keep making noise.

"So really-really this has nothing to do with you, and it's more of a…defense mechanism that allows me to avoid…listening to annoying criticism," Anna finishes triumphantly. As if her little speech made any sense at all.

"When have I ever criticized you for playing computer games?" Elsa huffs as she writhes in Anna's grasp, nearly elbowing her sibling in the stomach.

Christ, Anna can feel the muscles moving under her dress and skin. Their interaction is quickly devolving into a wrestling match, which Anna might not survive if she wins. The image of pinning Elsa to the floor is a little too much for her to take.

"That's not the point!" she pants, dragging Elsa to the door.

"Then what  _is_  your point?!" Digging in to the carpet, Elsa heaves Anna back towards the computer, but her right foot comes down on Anna's left, and with a single yelp of surprise they're on the ground, Anna's front pressed against Elsa's back, and Anna is  _so_  floored, but it's all good because she's not alone, Elsa's here with her and both of them are gasping for air, and somehow Anna's still gripping Elsa's arms, and her sister is bucking underneath her like-like-like and Anna's brain is dead, seriously pieces of it are on the wall, don't you see them—

Elsa snarls in annoyance. "Will you just let me up?"

"Only if you promise to leave the room." Oh look, Anna's brain is still partially functional. Thank god for small miracles.

"What the heck are you doing on the computer?"

"None of your business."

Should Anna be trying to look in her sister's eyes right now? It's kind of hard to do when Elsa is facing away from her. And squirming.

"Well, I need to print out a housing form for this fall, so if you just let me do that—"

It is at this point that Anna realizes she can feel where Elsa's dress ends against the front of her thigh, which means that the conservative mid-calf skirt, is no longer conservative or mid-calf. Gulping, she glances at their tangled legs. She flexes one just to feel their skin brush against each other. Dimly she's aware that Elsa has stopped talking and struggling, and she's suddenly struck by the terrible, terrible thought that if she just reaches down and hikes Elsa's dress up a little more, she'd probably get to see—

Then Elsa  _surges_.

"No!" Anna shouts in a panic as her sister wriggles onto her feet. Fighting off Elsa's flailing limbs, she dives for the computer. One of Elsa's hands reaches up from behind her head, covering her eyes. Anna flounders for the mouse and clicks wildly on what she hopes is the upper right corner of each window. Elsa's hands finally drag her down and the blond rises to her feet. Anna can only pray that she managed to close out of Google Chrome as her forehead bounces against the carpeted floor.

Her sister's whoop of victory chokes off into a strangled gurgle. Anna can hear her fleeing their room, rambling out an apology for interrupting Anna's privacy. Dazedly Anna tilts her head back to look up at the computer screen.

"Fuck."

She drops her head back down onto the carpet. She deserves to be alone for the rest of her life.

Big black letters on her computer monitor read, "Anonymous Sex Toy Review: The Candy-Colored Glass Dildo."

"Fuck the Internet."

Anna learns enough of a lesson not to ask the Internet what to do when one's older sister and love interest thinks one is researching sex toys. On the bright side, she has no doubt fully achieved "getting a friend to think of you sexually."

Yep. That one's in the bag.

When she hears a car trailing off into the distance, Anna decides to risk a trip downstairs.

"Hey, Mom," she calls out when she reaches the kitchen. Her voice sounds surprisingly normal. "Was that Elsa pulling out of the driveway?"

"Yes," her mother replies, not looking up from the tomato she's slicing. "I sent her out for some lemons."

"I hope she doesn't get lost."

"I  _know_  she will, but it's good for her to learn how to find her way around, especially with college coming up this fall."

Exhaling sharply, Anna begins rifling through the cabinet for a pot.

"So," Anna starts.

"Yes?"

"What are we doing for Elsa's birthday?"

Her mother sighs and brushes her bangs out of her eyes. "That's coming up in less than two weeks, isn't it?"

Anna nods.

"Well, it's safe to say we're not having another party. Maybe we'll go out for dinner with your grandparents."

"I thought maybe we could have a sisters' night," Anna suggests, ever so casually.

"And what would that entail?"

Anything to that would let Anna get Elsa alone in a romantically dim room for more than an hour.

"Uh…a cake?"

"And I assume that since you are the sister,  _you_  will be baking said cake," her mother comments dryly.

"Well...it might be safer if I buy one then," Anna admits.

Her mother snorts. "And what are your father and I supposed to do while the two of you play house?"

Stay far, far away.

"You guys could go out for the evening," Anna proposes.

A dark eyebrow rises on her mother's forehead. "I thought this was  _Elsa's_  birthday we're talking about."

"Er…yes." Anna gropes for a decent reason why she wants her parents out of the house other than "I want to make out with my older sister." Without having the faintest clue of what to say, she starts talking. "But if you guys went out, then we would have the whole house to ourselves and…"

"You would throw an illicit party with illegal substances?" her mother speculates slyly.

"No!"

"Then why would you need the whole house to yourselves?"

"Just-just," Anna stutters. "You know what?  _We'll_  go out. Somewhere. Nice. All day."

"So you're offering me an entire day of not hovering over you? I like this deal."

"You don't need to hover over us. You never hover—okay, whatever." Her mother loves getting Anna all riled up. She's sure the woman falls asleep every night, cataloging and evaluating the aneurisms she bestows upon her daughter. Anna forces herself to calm down and then realizes. "Okay. Wait, what am I getting out of this deal?"

"Permission," her mother responds promptly.

"Great," Anna deadpans. Must conversations with her mother always feel like hostage negotiations?

"Great," her mother apes. "I'll let your father know about your plans. If you come up with any."

Anna has less than two weeks to figure out this seduction thing. Totally doable, right?

Closing her eyes, she imagines a large crowd of people pumping their fists and chanting, "Right!" It makes her feel better.


	5. Stupid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, I kick this chapter off with a flashback. You'll know the flashback's over when I switch back to present tense. (Hint: Anna becomes a stealthy and classy secret agent).

5\. Stupid

Ella pursed her lips, just a little, when Anna mentioned Kristoff was going to the dance with her.

"What's his last name?"

"Bjorgman."

"Kristoff Bjorgman. Never heard of him."

But Anna didn't really care too much, she decided, about who Ella did and didn't know. If Kristoff was there, Anna would know that she had a friend who wasn't obsessed with analyzing crushes, rivals, and celebrities. Even Rapunzel was becoming a little unbearable in her infatuation with Flynn. It would be Kristoff and Anna, just like it had always been.

* * *

 

Friday afternoon, Anna spun in circles, looking for Kristoff before getting on the bus. She wanted to ask him what time they were going and offer him a ride. Apparently, it was a task easier conceived than completed. She'd sprinted around the school, searching for him, and come to the conclusion that he must already have gotten onto the bus and gone home. Anna was stuck waiting for the late bus, which wasn't due to arrive for another hour.

It couldn't take that long to get ready for some stupid dance, right?

Much to her surprise, she spotted Ella in the halls talking to someone. Didn't she say she'd already be at home already doing her hair? Anna was about to approach her friend and ask when she realized that John Charming was leaning against the lockers, chin tucked into his collar as Ella batted her lashes at him. The girl probably wouldn't enjoy having her conversation with the object of her affections interrupted, especially since this was the day, as Ella constantly reminded them, that  _Prince_  Charming would sweep her off her feet. Digging her heels in, Anna ducked into an empty classroom. She didn't mean to eavesdrop—oh, who was she kidding? Anna was dying to know how exactly a "fairy-tale romance" like John and Ella's operated.

"So what are you wearing tonight?" Ella inquired coyly.

John grunted noncommittally. He was the kind of guy who tended to grunt a lot when talking to someone who was younger than him. "A suit. My father has a tie I can borrow."

"I'm sure you'll clean up nice." Ella giggled.

"Of course," he replied.

This was the most boring romance Anna had ever heard of. So much for grand declarations of undying love—or even affectionate whispers of mutual attraction.

"How'd you get this stain on your shirt?"

Anna hadn't noticed any stains when she was out in the hallway, so it couldn't be too obvious.

"Stupid kid from sixth grade bumped into me at lunch," John growled. "Fat fag."

Recoiling from the slur, Anna knocked her head into the wall. She swore softly, trying to stay undercover.

Ella appeared unperturbed by both Anna's spaz attack and John's vulgarity. Anna didn't know how to feel about that. Wasn't Ella always going on about refinement and graciousness? But all Ella said was, "Oh really? Who was he?"

"Dunno his name. It's that stupid kid who wears that stupid T-shirt." Well, geez, that narrows it down, to like, 99% of middle school boys.

" _What_  kid?" Anna cheered Ella on. Finally an intelligent question.

"You know, the fat one. Big nose. Blond. Wears that stupid T-shirt all the time. 'Reindeers are better than people,' or some shit like that?"

Anna's stomach rocketed up her throat and punched hole through the roof of her mouth.

Ella laughed. "Oh, you mean that kid? Yeah, he's a little…" She must have made some physical gesture, because the pair burst out laughing all of a sudden. Light, warm and easy. Not at all like they were ridiculing of Anna's best friend.

"So I gave him a piece of mind," John drawled, clearly feeling more conversational now that the subject matter had turned towards bashing sixth-graders. "Told him to watch wear he was going if he could see it over that reindeer ass of his."

"John!" Ella yelped in mock horror.

"What? It's true."

Ella broke into reluctant giggles.

They were so casual in their cruelty, that Anna had a hard time recognizing it as such. Maybe they didn't even realize what they were doing. After all, they didn't know Kristoff. It was easy to make fun of strangers. Anna did it all the time to the man at the hardware store and the old lady at mass.

She'd point out weird looking faces to Elsa and do exaggerated caricatures of them, squishing her lips together like mushrooms and using flecks of dirt as particularly conspicuous moles. Elsa who never seemed to notice these oddities, rarely cracked a smiled until Anna began howling about the state of the titanium shingle froes in a nasally tenor. Her sister's stoicism only made Anna's efforts more robust. Anna would do anything to tease a grin onto Elsa's face. Did that make Anna mean?

No. It was all in good fun, right? Ella and John were being a little careless of other people's feelings. That was all.

"I think the bus is here," John announced.

Footsteps echoed down the hall as the pair departed. For some reason, Anna crouched in the classroom long after the last bus rumbled away, not wanting to be seen and fighting off her rising sense of nausea.

* * *

 

Strangely enough, when Anna finally got back home at four, Elsa wasn't in the house. She called out, poking her head in all the empty rooms and even checking under the dining room table just to be safe. Where did Elsa go? She almost never left the house alone. Her sister had been born with a hopeless sense of direction. The girl got lost in the grocery store, for heaven's sake.

Did she miss the bus? And then the late bus? Elsa never stayed after school on purpose, maybe she didn't know which late bus to take. But then why hadn't Anna seen her at the school? Was there an intruder? Did Elsa get kidnapped? It didn't look like anyone had broken in, but Anna wAnd maybe he had snatched off the doorstep when the bus ppulled away.

On the brink of calling her mother at work (which was only reserved for absolute emergencies), Anna happened to glance outside the living room window at the bright sunny afternoon, the familiar rusty mailbox, the lawn dotted with dandelion heads, and at Elsa strolling down the street, head swiveling frantically on her neck as though looking around for a ghost.

Anna bolted out of the door. Elsa turned at the sound of the screen door opening and then seeming to disregard Anna completely, looked again to her left, as though perplexed by the sight of the Darlings' house across the street.

"ELSA!"

The blast of noise from Anna's throat had her sister whirling around to face her. She sprinted down the driveway, barefooted, to catch her sister in her arms.

"Jesus Christ! I almost called Mom when I couldn't find you at home," Anna complained into Elsa's shoulder. "I was worried," she confessed.

" _You_  were worried?" Elsa's hands came up and pulled Anna back from their embrace. She studied Anna's face at arm's length. " _You_  were worried? Where the heck were you? I've been looking everywhere for you. I tried to walk back to the school, but I got lost, and then I couldn't-I didn't recognize—"

"I missed the bus. Twice." Anna cringed at how ditzy she sounded. "Principal Whedon dropped me off."

"God, Anna." Elsa's voice shook slightly. Suddenly, Anna noticed that Elsa's entire body was shaking slightly, and her fair skin was turning that tell-tale shade of pink that heralded a nasty full-body sunburn. How long had Elsa been searching for her? Had she really tried to walk back to school? As a kid, Elsa had always been terrified of getting lost. Anna could remember coaxing a trembling, seven-year-old Elsa out of the cereal aisle, back to their mother's shopping cart. No matter how many times they went back to Oaken's Malt and Mart, Elsa could not seem to get a grip on the layout of the store. Her sister's complete incompetence in all things geographical usually drove Anna crazy, but now it made Anna want to wrap her up another hug.

So she did.

"Ow, ow, ow!"

Elsa flinched back at Anna's exclamation, bewildered as her younger sister began flinging her feet up in some sort of erratic, knee-jerking dance.

"The pavement is hot!" Anna shrieked, leaping for the cool grass. Her feet were still tender when they hit the lawn, but at least they weren't burning.

And then Elsa was laughing at her and everything was fine with the world.

* * *

 

Except, like, it was seriously not fine.

"What do you mean you're not going to the dance?" Anna demanded.

"I just don't feel like it, okay?" Kristoff replied stonily from the other end of the phone. "What's it matter to you?"

"I thought we were going together," Anna complained

"Well. I don't  _want_  to," Kristoff spat out.

"You know what, you're just—" fat and weird, "—just stupid."

"Stupid?"

"Yeah, who goes around wearing a reindeer shirt?"

"At least I don't have to wear braces."

Before Anna could pick up the pieces of her self-confidence, Kristoff hung up the phone.

* * *

 

Anna crouches behind the living room door.

That's a lie.

They don't have a living room door, and Anna is leaning stealthily against the wall. Her father and Elsa are watching some sort of news program on the sofa and chatting softly. Anna is eavesdropping. Maybe Elsa will confess that she's always dreamt of sitting by the pond in the Spire Park, stroking little ducklings on their downy heads, and falling head over heels in love with the beautiful, classy person lying next to her.

Did Anna mention that she's very stealthy? And classy?

Ba-da-ding!

Right hand flying down to her back pants pocket, Anna rockets about a foot into the air as her phone goes off. Luckily, neither Elsa nor her father seem to notice.

_R u alive dude?_

Anna quickly taps out a  _Yep, busy_  in response to Merida's text before flicking the silencer and shoving the phone back in her pocket.

"What are your plans for this week, kiddo?" her father asks Elsa affectionately from inside the living room.

Elsa mumbles out a response, and Anna scooches along the wall. Why does her sister have to talk so damn soft?

_What do u mean, busy?_ her phone vibrates.  _U been busy all week._  Anna rolls her eyes and ignores it. She's been dodging her friends since Sunday afternoon—which is not "all week"—trying to put together a battle plan for next Wednesday. Monday morning she put in an order for a special birthday cake at the local bakery. Upon returning home, she swallowed her misgivings about the Internet to scout out any tourist or leisure area within an hour's drive from their home—definitely no golfing—eyes darting suspiciously over her shoulder in case Elsa decided to pop into their room again.

Fortunately, her sister has recently acquired the peculiar habit of choking, reddening and fleeing the room whenever she encounters Anna, especially when the aforementioned little sister is hunched over a computer.

"Friday?" Anna perks up at the tail end of her father's question.

"Yeah," Elsa replies. "He's working tomorrow. And I've got to see Mr. Geppetto on Thursday."

Anna has a sinking feeling she knows who "he" is. To her comfort, their father seems as ambivalent about Hans as he's always been: simultaneously warmed at the sight of Elsa finally forging connections with the people around her and discomfited by the thought of his favorite daughter being some punk's girlfriend. Oh, Anna knows who their father's favorite child is, even if he won't admit it. They've spent too many evenings stooped at the kitchen table over blocks of ice to Lena's frustration and Anna's exasperation.

Anna knows.

It's not worth jealousy (unless Anna is feeling petulant). For all those years before the diagnosis, Elsa needed their father more. But still, Anna would have appreciated his shoulder to cry on every once in a while. Particularly in the year of the braces. Their mother, while solicitous in her own wry way, was never much one for "squishiness."

Another vibration from her phone. Another text from Merida.  _Kristoff thinks ur mad at him._

Exasperated, Anna replies,  _Tell him he's wonderful and to quit being such a baby._

Her father and Elsa are still quietly conversing within the room. "How are your lessons going?" he asks.

"Good." A pause before Elsa elaborates. "We're working with wood now mostly. He's got some idea about putting on an old-fashioned puppet show, you know? With wooden puppets and strings? The faces are getting easier to carve."

"What about the ice?"

"We'll go back to it in the winter. It's a little inconvenient right now. It melts while I'm working on it."

"That's too bad."

Anna practically feels Elsa's shrug. "It'll be easier to see him this winter. I'll be in Weselton already."

"Do you know your way?"

"More or less."

Worry creeps into their father's tone. "If you ever get lost—"

"I know."

The pair in the living room seem to lose themselves in a news story about a spike of violence in Iraq. Merida texts Anna again.  _The avoidin us?_

_I'm not avoiding you guys._

Before Anna can add anything else, Elsa speaks up. "Hans will be there. And Belle. At Weselton I mean. They can help."

A grunt from their father. "You're seeing him Friday?"

"He's picking me up at five. It's a nice restaurant."

Anna clenches her phone in her fist. She's not strong enough to break it.

"Don't stay out too late."

Chest tight, she sends another message to Merida.  _You busy Friday?_

* * *

 

"I'm busy. Elsa's birthday is coming up in like a week," Anna complains defensively. "Why the heck would he say I'm mad at him?"

"Well, he didn't really  _say_  it," Merida starts, pulling a rubber balloon over the nozzle of the hose. "And what does your sister's birthday have to do with any of this?"

Rolling her eyes, Anna squeezes the trigger, ever so gently, and watches the balloon swell with water. She ignores the question about Elsa's birthday. Too risky to talk about. "Then why are  _you_  saying that he thinks I'm mad at him?"

Merida scoffs and frees the sagging balloon from the hose. "I'm not blind, you know. He's obviously worried you're not talking to him for some reason, and we all had to convince him that you weren't really talking to any of us." Using her teeth and fingers, she ties off their ammunition with far more dexterity than Anna could ever muster.

"Look, I've been busy, okay? I didn't realize I was his babysitter." Anna reaches for another balloon and then notices the pointed glare Merida is directing towards her. "Fine," she relents. "I promise I'll text him some random junk about my life, okay? Can we just finish these up quick? He'll be here any moment."

Merida sighs, only half-appeased. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" she questions. "If I were your sister, I'd be seriously ticked."

"Well, you're not," Anna retorts. "You're just my contracted merc." She and Merida are hiding in the bushes along the side of the Arendelle residence. Anna made sure that nobody could see them from the street, the bay window, or elsewhere inside the house. Flicking her hair out of her face, she hands Merida a newly filled balloon to tie up. "If you want, leave after you finish a few more of these. I'll throw them myself, and no one will know you were here."

The redhead snorts. "You? Throw them? Only if I wanted you to accidentally take out a streetlight. You couldn't throw straight to save your life."

"It's not like I could actually damage anything with a water balloon," Anna carps. "And I hit Marshmallow with a snowball last winter. Don't you remember how mad he was?"

"The guy is 6'8" and weighs at  _least_  200 lbs. You would have had to have been blindfolded to miss him."

"No!  _You_  missed him, Miss I-am-Katniss's-Scottish-American-reincarnation!" Anna protests.

"Katniss is from a dystopian future. If anything, she is  _my_  reincarnation. And a poor one at that," Merida huffs. "And, for your information, I was standing on the other side of the street! You were literally four feet from him! He could have reached out and patted you on the head."

"Could not—Wait, are you calling me short?"

"I said nothing of the sort. Though I can't account for your subconscious insecurities which may or may not be rooted in fact."

"Hey!"

"Duck!" Merida hisses, dropping into the dirt.

"What?" Anna looks around for web-footed friends.

"Get down, you moron."

The friends huddle behind a lilac bush as a silver sedan sweeps down their street and parks by the Arendelle driveway. Agitatedly, Anna counts the number of water balloons they have filled up. 11. Plenty for two people, right?

"Why isn't he getting out of the car?" Anna mutters.

"Dunno. Maybe your sister is just going to come out of the house to meet him."

For a heartbeat, Anna is crushed. She's been looking forward to slinging a water balloon into Hans's stupid face all day. They might stall the date if they just get Elsa, but chances are, she'll just go back inside to change—after gutting Anna with a dull knife.

"We have to get him to go inside," Anna fusses.

But neither of them have any idea of how to do that.

Elsa steps out of the door, impossibly elegant in a blue dress, and Merida winds up for her first pitch.

"Hold your fire!" Anna squeaks, tackling her friend to the ground. Her sister jerks at the noise, but the pair are safely tucked behind the lilac plant. Brushing her bangs out of her face, Elsa glides down the driveway into Hans's car.

From beneath Anna, Merida grouses, "Get off me, you—"

"Follow them!" Anna leaps to her feet. Where are her car keys? Oh look, in her back pocket.

"I can't  _believe_  I let you drag me into this!" Merida clambers out of the bushes brushing dirt from her T-shirt and picking twigs from her hair.

"Hurry up!" Anna bellows, honking the horn. "Bring the ammo!"

Abetted by Anna's superb—life-scarring, as interjected by Merida—driving skills, the two arrive at The Castle—a truly royal dining experience, as advertised on television—just as Hans is helping his date out of the car.

"Go! Go! Go!" Anna exhorts. Merida hops out of Anna's station wagon before it's even stopped moving and begins launching their watery missiles at the back of Hans's dapper white suit.

Hans lurches as the cold water hits his back. "What the—

Merida's next projectile collides squarely with his mouth. He gags and splutters. Anna lets out a war whoop of victory, unbuckling her seatbelt and tumbling out with her arms full of her own weaponry.

"Hans?" Elsa steps out of the car looking concerned and confused, clearly not recognizing Merida.

"Don't move," Anna warns Merida. Maybe Elsa's eyesight is like a bear's and she won't notice them if they're completely still. Yeah right.

"Anna? I can hear you," Elsa says, staring right at her.

Dang it. Anna really needs to learn how to be stealthy.

She gives her older sister a sheepish wave.

Elsa opens her mouth. "What are you—"

"What in the world is going on?" an irate, soaked, sideburn-toting boyfriend demands. His voice fractures something inside Anna, and she hurls one of her remaining balloons at his irritating face…and misses.

Elsa shrieks as a bright red balloon explodes on her chest, water gushing gown the bodice of her dress.

Anna gives herself a second to watch the water and damp cloth adhere to Elsa's skin, and then—

"Abort! Abort!" she wails, dragging Merida back to the station wagon. A small crowd of people gape at Hans and Elsa's sodden state. "Pull out and retreat. I repeat, pull—"

"Shut up already," Merida barks. "You're not in a freaking video game!"

" _AN_ -NAAAA!" Elsa roars.

"I am so screwed," Anna moans as she peels out of the parking lot.

"Told ya, you were a terrible shot."

* * *

 

"Can I at least know why we did that?" Merida asks as she gets out of the station wagon.

"Just—" Anna can't tell her the truth. She's not even sure what the truth is. What was she thinking? She probably barely impeded their date at all, and even if she totally ruined the night, it's not like Elsa would now break up with the jerk. No, the only thing she managed to accomplish was aggravating Elsa. And getting her wet.

Anna needs to think of something other than Elsa wet.

"I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess. And now Elsa's probably going to kill me."

Anna must look absolutely dejected, because Merida softens her tone a bit. "Hey, if I killed my little brothers every time they embarrassed me, or irritated me, or even lobbed gross stuff at me, they would all be dead forty times by now. You're siblings, right? Stupid stuff happens. You yell, you cry—well, y _ou_  maybe cry, can't say I do it too much myself—and you make up. She's still family and she'll still love you."

"Thanks." Anna tugs a flimsy smile onto her face. She wonders how much more of her behavior Elsa will be willing to chalk up to her natural "exuberance." Elsa's not an idiot.

"Besides, it was pretty funny when I nailed Sideburns right in his face, huh?"

This time Anna can't stop the grin from appearing.

* * *

 

Hey, Elsa. It's me, Anna. Your sister who didn't mean to hit you with a water balloon and then leer at your chest. I'm sorry; I just wanted to ruin your date. Of course, none of this would have happened if you weren't dating the stupid Prince of the Sideburns instead confessing your undying love for me.

Anna winces as turns the key in the station wagon. She might need to work on that particular apology. God, what if Elsa told their parents? How's she going to explain this to them?

Hey, Mom, Dad. Yep, I was totally just acting like a seven-year-old. Little old me. It's not like I'm insanely, dumbfoundingly jealous of my sister's boyfriend or anything like that. Not at all.

Groaning, she steps out of the car. Better to get it over with.

"Hey, honey." Her mother's disembodied voice drifts in from the living room. "Where've you been?"

No angry confrontation. That's a good sign, right? "Oh, just dropped Merida off at her house."

"That's nice, dear."

Well, that's one load off her shoulders. At least she only has to deal with Elsa's impending fury.

She climbs the stairs to their shared room. Every thump of her foot against carpeted steps is a death knell. Maybe if Anna gets on her knees and begs for forgiveness…

To her surprise, the second floor bathroom door is closed. Elsa must be in there.

"Elsa," she says tentatively. "Can we talk? I'm really sorry about—"

A muffled, "Go away, Anna," emits from behind the unyielding door.

"Please, I—"

"Just go."

Slumping, Anna drags herself to their bedroom and collapses belly first into a heap on her bed, burying her face in the comforter. She's really screwed up this time. Elsa's really mad. What if she refuses to talk to Anna until her birthday? Past her birthday? All that planning wasted just because Anna couldn't think with her head for one sec—

"HOLY SHIT!" Anna yawps as a cascade of freezing water slams into her back.

"What are the two of you doing up there?" their mother shouts.

"Nothing!" Anna replies without thinking, gawking at Elsa who towers above her, a dripping bucket tilted in her grasp.

A smug, sultry, positively  _evil_  smirk surfaces on Elsa's normally cordial face. Anna's entire body shudders. It  _might_  be from the bone-numbing cold. She just wants to crawl into Elsa's arms.

"I fully accept your apology," Elsa announces primly, setting the bucket on the floor.


	6. Screw-ups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter of incestuous lesbian fanfiction I wrote in the public library since my internet was down. Good days.

6\. Screw-ups

Anna wakes up early on the morning of her sister's birthday and watches the rise and fall of Elsa's sheets as she sleeps. Elsa makes Anna's heart twinge, curled up and into herself, half her face mashed against a pillow and light hair flung haphazardly about her neck. If Anna had time, she'd sit here for another hour or so, just to soak it all in. She used to do it every morning, back when Elsa refused to speak to her, like prisoner starving for a forbidden sun.

With a jolt, she remembers the date and springs from the bed. She cannot screw this up. Swearing as softly as she can manage, Anna pads over to the bedroom closet. What the heck is she going to wear? What did that article say? Something about wearing a riskier second layer for just the right moment. Who wears layers in the summer?

Anna finally decides to wear a camisole instead of a bra and throw a light cotton shirt over it. Jeans or no jeans? It's hot out. Jean shorts.

She scuttles out of the closet on her tiptoes. Elsa's breathing doesn't appear to have changed. Thank god her sister is such a heavy sleeper. Thank god Anna has fourteen contingency plans for what to do if Elsa does wake up early for some reason. Thank god that Anna will most certainly not be screwing this up.

Ducking into the bathroom, she brushes her teeth, splashes water on her face and briefly considers doing something with her hair before she remembers that Elsa likes her hair best the way it usually is, in its reliable twin braids. Anna darts downstairs, fumbling for the car keys.

The baker's wife Anastasia is carefully adding the last bits of icing to the small cake Anna ordered when the girl bursts in.

The woman tsks at her sharply. "I didn't think you'd be here  _this_  early."

"Well," Anna offers meekly, "it's just, you know, I've got to get going."

As soon as she tosses the money on the counter, she scoops up the cake and hotfoots it out the door.

"Shoot, no cooler," she says to herself. She has to remember to load the car before they leave for the day. Otherwise it's Contingency Plan 51 for the win.

When Anna stumbles through the front door, arms outstretched, hands clutching the little cardboard box, her mother barely looks up from the morning newspaper.

"I just heard Elsa getting up a few minutes ago," she informs her daughter.

"Great," Anna puffs. "Could you cut this cake?"

In her typical fashion, their mother arches an eyebrow. "I thought you were doing the work this year."

"I'm making breakfast! I ordered the cake! I picked up the cake! All I'm asking—"

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding." Her mother's means of obtaining amusement never fail to confound Anna. "Yes, I will cut my eldest daughter's birthday cake."

"Good," she mutters, throwing a frying pan on the stove and rifling through the cabinets for oil.

"If you make a mess, you'd better clean it up," her mother warns.

"Yeah, yeah."

"Look who's cooking." Her father clomps onto the first floor in his blue slippers. "Didn't realize we were trying to collect on the fire insurance. I would have brought a flamethrower."

"Hah-hah."

"You seem to have it covered," he mocks, moustache twitching just a little.

While she waits for the oil to heat up, she takes the eggs out of the fridge. Anna has long been convinced that her father is the sole mortal being on the planet blessed with the ability to simultaneously have a moustache and not look like a pedophile. Or a genocide…ist. A person who commits genocides.

Anna's linguistic capacity is severely compromised when she notices something on the side of her father's face.

"Oh my god."

Anna forgets about the oil, forgets about the eggs, forgets Elsa's birthday and her 98 color-coded Contingency Plans.

"Oh. My. God."

"Is something wrong?" her father asks, his brow softening with concerns.

"YOU HAVE SIDEBURNS!" Anna shrieks.

Her life has been shattered. How could her dear, sweet father ever commit such an atrocity, ever step into the valley of evil, ever betray them all with so horrifying a hairstyle—

Anna might be wound a little tight this morning.

"I do. Is there a problem?" He frowns. "Are they uneven?" Both his hands rise to the sides of his face as he feels for his hirsute transgression. Anna feverishly reassures herself that they're relatively thin and unobtrusive in comparison to a certain other pair.

"Yes—I mean no. I mean I've just never noticed them before is all." Anna resolutely directs her attention to cracking eggs, afraid to look up at him again lest she discover a heretofore unnoticed scar marring his once unsullied features. One day she might forgive her father for this perfidious crime. It's not like it's the end of the world.

She cracks five eggs into the pan. She only needs two.

Do not screw this up.

Elsa likes eggs, right?

"Hey, do either of you want an extra egg?"

Her mother waves off the offer absentmindedly. "No thanks."

Anna checks to see if her father can hear her, but he's disappeared, probably to the bathroom to examine his face. Hopefully he realizes that the sideburns are a terrible, terrible mistake. Soft thuds echo as Elsa descends the stairs, looking partially asleep in her nightgown.

She approaches the kitchen counter and stretches her arms out like a well-rested cat. "Why are you all up so early?"

Anna loses speech again. This is becoming a serious problem.

"Happy birthday, dear." Their mother actually tears her eyes off of the local news article to deliver this greeting. A warm smile crosses her face.

"Oh, right." Elsa flushes and bites her bottom lip, embarrassed. It does not help Anna remember her words.

And then their father lumbers out of the bathroom, beaming. "There's the birthday girl." He gives her a hug.

Elsa's shoulders huddle together bashfully, and Anna's heart is about to ooze out her nose. If Anna doesn't say something within the next five seconds, she's going to screw this up spectacularly.

"I-uh, I'm making you breakfast."

Coherency. Anna always knew she could achieve it.

She can't restrain the nervous grin that gallops across her features when Elsa turns to face her with that half-shy, half-delighted smile.

"You didn't have to do that."

As a working knowledge of how to speak returns to her, Anna sighs in relief. Things have been good between the sisters since the water balloon fiasco. Elsa seems more playful than she's been in forever, shoving Anna's shoulders, laughing at Anna's facial expressions—which Elsa has informed her are rather entertaining—and generally relaxing her guard. Somehow, dumping a gallon of cold water down her little sister's back set something loose in Elsa, something Anna hasn't seen for ages.

Anna wants to keep this new (or is it an older version?), lighthearted Elsa and rub her tummy. Tucking a braid behind her shoulder, she jokes, "Well, if I did, it would be a crappy gift, wouldn't it?"

"I guess. Though I suppose this is your way of wiggling out of getting me a real gift," Elsa teases back.

"Sure, such a cynic—wait, what?"

Anna's face collapses in on itself.

Anna just screwed up.

* * *

 

Anna knew she'd screwed up the moment she hung up the phone. She'd known that people were making fun of Kristoff for his reindeer shirt. She'd just overheard John and Ella deriding him, calling him fat and stupid. So why would she ever think it was okay to attack him with it?

Anna had always assumed herself to be a good person. She didn't aspire to lie, steal, murder her way to a comfortable existence. She didn't derive any perverse pleasure from the suffering of small animals. She didn't consciously consider other races or classes of people inferior. More than that, Anna had always been the nice girl. The girl in kindergarten who, despite a penchant for unnecessary theatrics, told off schoolyard bullies, greeted new arrivals like old friends and shared her toys with everyone. Throughout elementary school, teachers and classmates alike were charmed by her vivaciousness and genuine goodwill. Anna was nice. Nice was Anna.

It wasn't just that. Anna had been brave too. She'd stood up to the fifth grade hall monitor when he threatened to tell on Jerry for something that never happened. She called Mrs. De Vil a monster right to her face when the old hag told a drowsy Aurora to "keep her disgusting face off the desk." Anna had always been a daring hero, a good guy, a true friend.

When did that change?

When did the Anna who told off Bob Parr for not letting Buddy Pine play Four Square—even if Buddy was annoying as heck—disappear? When did Anna who wasn't afraid of judgment and censure in the pursuit of righteousness turn into a coward who hid and listened passively while other children insulted her oldest friend? When did the girl who swore to be always there for her older sister decide it was okay to abandon Elsa at lunch just because she  _said_  it was okay?

The frightening thought that she had become a bully sent Anna sinking to the floor. Shame bubbled up in her throat

But Ella was a good person, right? At least when she wasn't fluttering around John like a light-addled moth. To take care of her ailing single father, Ella cleaned on the weekends for the Tremaines, a snooty, upper-class family who lived in the foothills surrounding Northam and treated the "help" like dirt, but she sucked it up and soldiered on. The unwavering loyalty and devotion Ella showed her father didn't fit with the pretentiousness which reared its ugly head in school.

Anna just didn't get it.

But she knew she'd screwed up.

Another perturbing thought surfaced. If they didn't like Kristoff because he was well…hefty and he had a dorky T-shirt, what did they think of Anna's god-awful braces? Ella and Rapunzel had both assured her that she looked just fine with braces on. All their friends said so, and even if Anna didn't believe them, it was comforting to know that they were all willing to pretend for her sake. Anna wondered whether Ella would be so supportive if Anna weren't already defined as a "friend." What did Ella say when Anna wasn't around if even Kristoff thought they were repulsive.

Elsa's head appeared in the kitchen entryway. "Hey, what are you doing on the floor?" She stepped in. "Are you crying? Anna."

"It's nothing," Anna stammered, clambering to her feet and rubbing at her eyes. As if this day couldn't get any more humiliating. She didn't want Elsa to know what an ugly person she had been. The braces were bad enough. Maybe it was the  _braces_. Who ever heard of a movie hero with braces?

"Why were you shouting on the phone?"

Anna cringed. "Nothing. Just Kristoff isn't going to the dance anymore. That's all."

"Oh." Elsa's face darkened. "Why not?"

"It's not his fault," Anna rushed out. "It's really my fault. I mean not really my fault, but sort of. I can't really blame him for it."

"What happened?"

"He said he didn't want to go. I got mad and said some stuff. He said…stuff and hung up."

The hug Anna found herself engulfed in subdued the worst of her overpowering shame. It was wonderful, knowing that even if everyone else thought Anna's was despicable, Elsa would always love her.

"Come on," Elsa murmured into her hair. "Let's get you ready."

"I don't wanna," Anna whined. She cringed immediately, ashamed of her own petulance.

"There's no reason not to go. You can wear one of my dresses."

Lighting up like a child on Christmas morning, Anna uncurled herself from her sister's arm. "Really?" Some of Elsa's dresses were just exquisite, though outlandish for school. Anna often thought that her sister looked like a misplaced fairy-tale princess. By contrast, most of Anna's dresses were childish and too small, and their mother refused to spend any money on a sixth grade dance.

"Of course."

The warmth in Elsa's eyes made Anna want to tear open her chest so that her sister could live inside. She settled for nodding.

When Anna stepped out of the bathroom fully attired for the first school dance of her life, Elsa tripped backwards over the carpet and onto her bed.

"Wh–"

"It's not that bad, right?" Anna worried, swiveling around for a mirror.

"Oh—Anna. No! I just—I just didn't recognize you for a second. You look so different with your hair up."

"Does it look okay?" One hand flew to the bun on her head.

"Yeah, you look great. I'm sorry. You just didn't look like yourself. I'm so used to seeing you with the braids…" Elsa trailed off. Her agitation manifested in her twiddling fingers.

"Don't worry about it."

Locating the mirror, Anna examined her reflection. The girl who stared back at her was surprisingly pretty. Elsa's old dress fit her well. It even smelled nice. A smile peeked through.

Metal glinted over white teeth.

Anna abruptly turned away, skirt swishing at her waist.

Elsa gazed at her. "You look beautiful," she said softly.

"You don't mean that," Anna snapped.

Taken aback, Elsa stopped fidgeting. "What?"

"You're just saying that. Everyone is just keeps saying that like I'm blind or something. I  _know_ I'm not pretty. I can see the braces—"

"I didn't say anything about the braces," Elsa interrupted decisively, her usually pensive voice hardened. "The braces are hideous. And temporary. I was talking about  _you_."

Anna gawked at her.

Shrugging, Elsa ducked her head a little and started playing with her thumbs again. Her voice softened, taking on the tentative tones of a confession. "Besides, I didn't say you were pretty. I said you were beautiful."

Later that evening, when Ella asked where her date was, Anna wasn't even listening. She was replaying Elsa's declaration in her head over and over again, grinning like a love-struck duck, not caring that everyone could see the wires in her mouth.

* * *

 

With a last reassurance to his younger daughter that no, the day was not ruined simply because she forgot to buy Elsa an actual present and yes, having planned an entire day of activities was more than enough of a birthday gift, Andrew Arendelle rushed out the front door of his house. Anna got the distinct sense that he was running away from her covert hysterics, but she would forgive him for that. And the sideburns. She would  _not_ forgive herself for forgetting to buy Elsa a birthday present. How could she be such an idiot?

"Anna! Come in here so I can cut the cake and go to work already!"

In the kitchen her mother is snapping photos of the cake on her phone (god knows your father would be heartbroken if he didn't get to see it). Elsa grins lopsidedly at the cake. The cake is covered in white frosting with blue snowflakes all along the edges.

After deciding that "Happy Birthday!" was just too boring, and "I love you," a little too forward, Anna pled with Anastasia—badgered the other woman until she caved—to write "How the heck were you born in summer?" in blue frosting in the middle of the cake. It's not exactly romantic, but Anna figures she scores points for originality.

Unfortunately the cake itself is only six inches in diameter and the words are crushed together—like Anastasia warned her they would be—but Elsa doesn't seem to mind.

"I hear you've planned the entire day."

Clear blue eyes regard Anna cautiously. Anna approaches the counter, standing right next to Elsa on the pretense of examining the cake. Their shoulders brush.

"Well," I want to make you fall in love with me, "it's your last birthday before you go to college, so I thought I'd make it special."

Sucking in a deep breath, she lays her part of her left hand over Elsa's right. Elsa doesn't flinch. Neither of them can work up the nerve to speak.

"Okay, get out of the way unless you want to get stabbed!" their mother announces, knife in hand.

Elsa sidesteps away, but her hand lingers, just a second longer than Anna thinks is necessary. Anna can't breathe for that second. Then, their mother materializes with the knife, and separation becomes requisite keeping their fingers attached to their palms.

The cake is good.

Afterwards, Elsa goes back upstairs to switch into day-clothes and taking advantage of her sister's temporary absence, Anna snatches the lunchbox out of the fridge and shoves it into a cooler. She stumbles into the garage, tripping over the stairs, and tumbles out, her arms full to bursting. With everything stowed away in the station wagon, Anna has nothing to do but wait. She might explode. Would that count as screwing up Elsa's birthday? Probably.

"I'll be waiting in the car!" she finally yells as the tension becomes unbearable. When she closes her eyes she sees their hands laid one over the other.

"Okay! I'll be down in a second."

At least now Anna can fiddle with knobs.

"Why won't you tell me where we're going?" Elsa asks for perhaps the third time in five minutes.

Anna's pretty sure the answer is obvious, but she voices it anyways. "It's a surprise."

Sighing dramatically, Elsa lolls her head back, exposing more neck than Anna can safely have in a car while driving. "But why does it have to be a surprise?"

"I don't know…" because surprises are supposed to be romantic, "because it just  _is_. Must you question everything?"

"Of course." In her peripheral vision, Anna catches sight of a blond head shaking back and forth. "The last time you told me 'it's a surprise' you nearly set the house on fire."

"Hey! That is so unfair." Anna whirls in her seat to confront her smirking sister. A dozen ways to wipe that expression off her face flash through Anna's mind, each more psychedelically lurid than the last. Swallowing her less than appropriate fantasies, she struggles to fashion a defense for herself. "I was eight. I thought that the longer you cooked something the better it was supposed to taste."

"That's pasta sauce, not brownies."

Since when did Elsa become a culinary expert? The image Anna's brain conjures of Elsa in an apron is disturbingly delightful.

"I know that  _now_!" Anna protests. "Why does everyone always bring that up?"

"It was a pretty memorable experience."

"I was  _eight_ ," Anna repeats, grasping at the fact like a lifeline. "Eight-year-olds do stupid things all the time."

"Which usually do not lead to the arrival of the fire department," Elsa points out loftily.

"It's not my fault that our neighbors are so…high-strung," Anna splutters. "Can we just talk about something else?"

"The best part was that you wouldn't leave the house when they tried to make you evacuate because you didn't want to abandon your brownies," Elsa snickers.

Anna groans in mock frustration.

In truth, she stopped feeling embarrassed about the incident a long time ago. She certainly hadn't felt all that self-conscious when she was beating her fists against the fireman's back. Heck, she used the story as an icebreaker whenever she met someone. "Oh you think you're hopeless in the kitchen? Let me tell you about the time I decided not to follow the directions on the brownie box."

But the story, Elsa's glee, and Anna's reaction are just part of a pattern the sisters fall into. As far as she can remember, Anna has done stupid things to get Elsa's attention. Dangerous things even, if Elsa was particularly deadset on ignoring her. Nothing pulled Elsa away from a book as fast as Anna twenty feet in the air, shouting unsteadily from the Darling's maple tree that this branch didn't feel very stable but she was going to climb it anyways. For so much of their childhood, Elsa had been absorbed in her own cave, rarely venturing into the sunlight or displaying any interest in other people. Anna had lived for those moments when Elsa stood underneath the tree, peering through the branches, wholly mesmerized by her little sister's bravado and terrified for her safety.

It was addicting. It  _is_  addicting.

"Watch the road, Anna!"

Heart bucking in her chest, Anna slams on the breaks. She's not sure when the car in front of her stopped for a red light, but hey, as long as they're both still alive, Anna's not going to sweat it. There's enough sweating to be done for when she actually screws this up.

"Jesus Christ, Anna, you nearly gave me a heart attack."

Elsa's hair slips from her usually tight braid and her knuckles are white on the door handle. Anna imagines her heart hammering in her chest. What was it that article suggested about a little "shared danger"? Without saying anything, Anna reaches over and tucks a fugitive strand back behind Elsa's ear. It's hard to tell whether the sound of rushing air comes from Elsa's gasp or the rickety AC. The embodiment of nonchalance, Anna fixes her eyes solemnly on the road, steadfastly refusing to check Elsa's reaction.

But inside she's doing the world's silliest happy dance. And Elsa is laughing her head off at her.

"We're going to the aquarium?"

"Damn it, Elsa." Anna breaks off her internal evaluation and re-organization of the day's events. How did she even figure it out? "It's supposed to be a surprise."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have driven past the large signs reading 'Welcome to Triton Aquarium! Home of the famous Crab Orchestra.'"

Anna flushes a little. "Nobody asked for your cheek."

"Oh, you don't have to. It's on the house."

The startlingly sassy comeback leaves Anna gaping. She nearly rear ends the car in front of her (again). If anything, Elsa is equally surprised at her own audacity, diverting her attention out the side window. The tips of her ears are bright red. Even after Anna parks and they step out of the car, she refuses to meet her eyes.

It's frighteningly adorable.

In a burst of courage, Anna grabs Elsa by one of her ear lobes, dragging her close.

"Anna!" she yelps.

"On the house? Really?" Anna teases, half whispering in her sister's ear. When she releases it, the two stagger apart trying to regain some sense of equilibrium after having been so dizzyingly close.

Sheepishly, Elsa looks away again, and Anna chuckles.

"It was just…a thing, okay?" Elsa manages.

Emboldened by her sister's embarrassment, Anna's grin widens. "When did you get so  _saucy_?"

The red erupts from Elsa's ear tips, blossoming across her face and neck. The blond's fair skin is poor cover for her physical reactions. Anna wants to trace the path of heated skin with her lips.

Elsa mutters something unintelligible.

Laughing, Anna throws an arm around her sister, hauling them towards the ticket booth.

She briefly considers making a clumsy joke about dinner, sauces, and what else is on the house before realizing that the quip is far less clever than it is vulgar. Maybe she could get away with it if they were actually dating or something. In the context of the weird let's-pretend-everything's-okay-even-though-oviously-we-are-not-okay dance that the two of them are stuck in, it will probably just make Elsa run and find a cave to hide in.

Anna can't suppress the touch of resentment.

But that's why Anna's doing this, the plans for "sisterly" bonding, the little touches, the teasing. As much as she wants to, Anna can't afford to push Elsa off the cliff. Her sister's too skittish, and Anna is tired of being the one putting her heart on her sleeve, on the table, on the floor. It's always Anna's fault when everything collapses and Elsa flees into the night. Anna's sick of being the sap and the screw-up. She's not going into that cave again, searching though the gloom for a lover amidst an arms race of obstinacy. This time, Elsa's going to walk out that cave and ask for her. And Anna will sit out here, atop her boxes and boxes of bruised, repudiated, hopelessly optimistic love, and wait.

Anna loosens the top two buttons of her cotton shirt as they wait in line. She catches Elsa watching her fingers before her sister starts a conversation about the heat.

It can't hurt to make the view outside as tempting as possible, right?


	7. Redemption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that.

7\. Redemption

The crab symphony is a bit of a disappointment. For one thing, crabs in real life make Anna's skin crawl. They're oversized insects that Anna can't crush with her boot. They don't actually use all those legs, do they? And why would they need eyes on stalks?

Shuddering, Anna turns away. No wonder she hates seafood.

The majority of the crabs are small and trained to gather in one area, so tourists are bunched around the tank, taking videos on their phones, and pointing wildly. Most of the shellfish seem to be simply banging on little bits of rock. A series of hi-tech underwater microphones pick up and magnify the vibrations in the water, which Anna supposes might pass for rhythmic. If the orchestra was slightly intoxicated.

As they crane their necks over the crowd, Anna makes a remark somewhere along the lines of arthropodic atonality and is rewarded by Elsa's snicker.

"Oh, that's because Sebastian passed away. Two weeks ago."

Anna jumps at least a foot in the air, whirling. "Holy—" Elsa elbows her in the ribs.

The girl standing behind them is about their age and wearing a blue and green Triton's Aquarium staff T-shirt. Her hair is violently red and damp, as though she's just been swimming.

"Er-oh, well, that's sad," Anna chokes. Rubbing her side gingerly, she shoots Elsa an aggrieved look.

Elsa ignores her. "I'm sorry to hear that," she says courteously.

Aquarium-girl bobs her red mane up and down. "He was a great conductor. And a composer."

"Was he a musician?" Anna asks, rallying all her social skills for the sake of this interaction. In truth, she just wants to drag Elsa off to the sea lion exhibit, but it seems rude break off a conversation with this girl whose… coworker? uncle? has recently died.

"He was. He was the best we ever had. And the most vibrant shade of red you ever saw."

Elsa and Anna exchange a look. Anna thinks there can't possibly be a more vibrant shade of red than this girl's hair. Right when she starts motioning Elsa to edge subtly towards their left, Elsa refocuses her attention on the girl.

"Was he a crab?" Elsa solicits kindly.

"Yes."

Anna nearly groans at the sniffle in the girl's voice. Will they ever escape? "Really?" she manages.

"Really! I saved his shell in my room." Voice wilting, the redhead adds, "He was my best friend ever since I was little…even if he wasn't a person."

"Anna and I used to have a snowman named Olaf. He liked warm hugs. Anna used to bring him inside the house because she was worried he'd get too cold."

The heat rises in Anna's cheeks. Olaf is their secret buddy. No one else is about to know about him. Not even Kristoff or Rapunzel. Definitely not this random girl they met at the aquarium.

"Elsa," she hisses. Elsa doesn't appear to notice.

The girl giggles. "You two sound really nice. I'm Ariel."

"Elsa." Her sister offers a pale, elegant hand.

Ariel stares at it for a second, as though not sure what to do about it and then takes it with a smile before turning expectantly to Anna.

"I'm Anna," she says flatly, put on the spot.

"The next crustacean concert isn't going to start for two hours. I can take you guys for a full tour if you want." Ariel beams.

Anna might have a stroke if this girl doesn't go away—or at least drop Elsa's hand. "Uh, I think we'll—"

"That sounds nice," Elsa agrees amicably.

Anna's protest dies a violent, spasmodic death in her throat. With Elsa looking so pleased at the thought, it's not like she can make an excuse for the two of them to get away. Ariel, who  _still_  hasn't released her grip on Elsa's hand, pulls her into the bowels of the aquarium, and all Anna can do is scramble after them.

Despite coming off as a complete space case as when she first approached the sisters, it turns out that Ariel is actually quite well-informed on the subject of marine life. Elsa just laps it up. The hour drags on and on. In a fit of petulance, Anna snidely asks about animal mistreatment in captivity, trying to pick a fight, only to be completely overwhelmed by Ariel's extensive understanding of animal regulations and ethics. At some point, probably around the time that Elsa asks how sharks are able to sense their prey's electrical pulses, and Ariel launches into a description of the ampullae of Lorenzini, Anna decides that the girl is actually an evil sea witch with a crab fetish.

Yep. Plausible.

Collapsing on a bench in the shark room, Anna feels like an unwanted straggler, like her date is flirting with someone else—which kind of the case, except Elsa doesn't even see it as a date. She glares at Ariel, wishing the girl would stop taking up all of Elsa's attention. As soon as the thought congeals in her mind, Anna regrets it. Elsa  _deserves_  to meet new people and make friends. It's what Anna, her mother, and her father were holding their breaths for during the tense years when all Elsa seemed to relate to were chunks of ice. Who is Anna to get in the way of Elsa having a healthy life?

But God, sometimes Anna wants Elsa all to herself. Bad enough that she has to concede some aspect of her to Hans.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket.

_Tell ur sister I said happy birthday._

Rolling her eyes, Anna starts tapping out a reply to Kristoff.  _I will if I ever get the chance._

_What do u mean?_

_We met some weird girl at the aquarium and now she's giving Elsa a freaking advanced bio lesson on sharks._

_Sounds boring… Weird girl?_

_It is. And she's got like this terrifyingly red hair. It's like ketchup._

_Lol. Well, uv got me. I can give you lesson on reindeer hooves if u want._

_I'll pass._

"Are you okay, Anna?" Blond hair falling in her face, Elsa peers at her sister's slouched form.

"Oh, yeah." Anna straightens up and tries to look like less of a slob, slipping her phone in a pocket. The shark tanks are underground and lit from within. In the walkway, Elsa's face is indiscernible, shadowed by the light of the exhibit behind her. Ariel explains to a group of tourists something about the advantages of an aquatic predator having wide-set eyes from next to the Hammerhead tank.

"Are you tired?"

"I'm fine, Elsa," Anna insists, clambering onto her feet. "Let's go see some sea lions." Maybe while Ariel is distracted, they can escape.

"Wait," Elsa says, "Ariel."

"Let's just go," Anna pleads.

Elsa frowns at her. "We can't just leave her. Just—"

"Please, Elsa, I just want to spend time with  _you_." Great, now Anna's the needy boyfriend. What was she thinking? That after spending a few hours with her, Elsa would simply lose all her inhibitions and confess her undying love?

"What's wrong with Ariel?"

"Nothing. I mean, don't you think she's—"

"She's what?"

Anna isn't sure what she even wants to say anymore. She can't admit that she's jealous because it's been years since Anna's been able to reach out and grab Elsa's hand whenever she feels like it. Or that Ariel's excessive knowledge of marine life feels like an insult to Anna's intellectuality. Or that the fact that Elsa enjoys a stranger's presence more than Anna's is more than frustrating, it's humiliating.

"Don't you think she's kind of weird?"

"Weird?" Elsa's voice is short and sharp.

Anna freezes and stutters. "Well—yes, like, strange. She sort of…just came up to you…for no reason. Who  _does_  that?" Picking up steam, she starts to gain confidence in the face of Elsa's silence. "And now she's dragging us around like we're her babysitters or something. And who cares about Laura of Zeeney? And who dyes their hair that shade—"

Elsa releases a sound that sounds like the embittered bastard child of a sob and a snarl. "Oh,  _that's_  what you think. Sorry we're not normal enough for you." Her narrow shoulders tremble with rage.

Anna recognizes a screw-up when she sees one.

"Elsa," she implores hastily, "you know I didn't mean it like that. You're—"

"Sorry you had to spend the day  _babysitting_  me." Elsa's voice wavers on the dangerous line between anger and hurt. "If it's been so inconvenient, why don't you just leave?"

"What? Elsa, calm down. You  _know_  I love you." In more than one way.

"Hey! You guys ready to move on?"

Both sisters nearly have heart attacks at the unexpected good cheer of Ariel's greeting. Recovering first, Elsa proclaims regally, "Yes. As a matter of fact I am. Let's  _go_."

"Elsa," Anna entreats futilely. Her sister sweeps down the walkway.

"Did you guys get into an argument or something?" Ariel asks blithely.

"Yes," Anna mutters sullenly.

Not even the sea lions dancing to "Thriller" can make her feel better.

* * *

 

About halfway through her seventh grade year, her orthodontist declared, once and for all, that Anna's teeth had reached the peak of perfection and that her braces could be removed so long as she remembered to wear her retainers every night. Anna wore them for about three weeks. Every other night.

Seventh grade felt fantastic. She was no longer on the lowest ladder rung, no longer known only as Elsa Arendelle's younger sister, and now, no longer cursed by the dreaded braces in her mouth. Her father would let Anna catch a ride with him and Elsa on their way to Mr. Geppetto's on Wednesdays and drop her off at the mall. It made Anna feel mature and important, strolling through the shops, trying on clothes she had no intention of buying, parroting her mother's opinions on certain brands and styles when she didn't have her own. She couldn't wait for eighth grade to start. Then she and her friends would be among the oldest kids in the school, and they would get to sit on the top bleacher during football games.

Elsa never went to any sporting events, so she wasn't using that privilege. She didn't push around sixth-graders—which Anna didn't really get either, but it was fun to talk about how short they were—or cut to the front of the line. All she ever did was hide in the garage and chip away at blocks of ice. She was becoming quite skilled, though it was hard to judge since Anna had never met another young ice sculptor.

Lately she and Elsa had been drifting apart as Anna spent less and less of her time at home. They still slept in the same room, but they didn't go out to play in the yard as often. They weren't little kids anymore.

"Why don't you take your sister with you to the basketball game tonight?" her mother asked once in mid-December.

"Elsa doesn't like basketball," Anna replied flippantly, digging through their room for her new cell phone.

"Elsa's never given basketball a chance," her mother states shrewdly.

"Well, I can't imagine it'd be her sort of thing. Running around with a hard rubber ball and all those other people on the court."

"I can't imagine it'd be your thing either. Running around without bumping into all those other people on the court."

Anna emerges from her sock drawer to spare her mother a dour glance. It dissolves the moment their eyes meet. Her mother's face is strained and drawn, devoid of its usual tongue-in-cheek serenity.

God, why can't Elsa see what this does to all of them? Can't she at least pretend to be normal? Just around their parents?

"We had another meeting with Mr. Moriarty yesterday. He says that Elsa isn't getting anywhere with other kids, and her grades are slipping. She apparently hasn't been turning some papers in. And you know she hates therapy."

Anna stopped listening after she heard that her sister's grades were slipping. It shouldn't have been such a big deal, but Elsa's grades have been her parents' only reassurance that their daughter was having any success in the public world. As long as her grades were good, Elsa must be doing something right, and she must at least be connecting to the learning. Her teachers all had nothing but praise for her work ethic. They thought she was courteous—if distant—but genuinely kind.

But if Elsa had quit turning in her schoolwork, it meant that she'd let go of the one handhold she'd had in the real world.

"I know that it's a lot to ask for a girl your age. But Elsa's your sister. She needs you and all of us on her side."

Anna already knew what had to be done. "Let's go talk to her."

"Talk" was a loose term for the interaction which ensued. A normally passive Elsa resisted her parents' attempts to cajole into going to the game. At first, her responses were polite and tranquil, typical of the sister Anna had always known, but when it became clear that her parents were not going to give up this time, Anna watched as she morphed into the school Snow Queen: morose and bordering on hostile. She hunched over the piece of ice she was chipping away at and flatly refused to leave the garage before she stopped speaking altogether.

Their parents' voices grew increasingly haggard. Unlike Anna, they'd never really seen this side of their eldest daughter, this veritable statue of resentment and cold, before. Finally, Lena Arendelle put her foot down. "You're going to the game, Elsa, even if I have to drag you into the car. You can't hide out here your entire life."

Elsa looked pretty determined to try.

Anna shifted uneasily in her place by the door. Much more of this, and they were going to be late. Elsa's disapproval of this plan was palpable, and Anna couldn't see the point anymore. If Elsa didn't want to go, she wasn't going to enjoy it no matter what Anna did.

"Honey," their father said gently. "You know your mother only wants what's best for you."

"I don't like basketball," Elsa repeated dully.

"That's alright," he replied. "The point is go there and meet people. I'm sure there will be nice people there. You'll know someone."

"I never know anyone."

"Rapunzel will be there," he soothed. "And Anna will be with you the entire time."

He turned expectantly to Anna.

"Uh. Yeah," Anna stuttered, unsure of her lines in this calamity waiting to happen. Her parents nodded urgently at her. She summoned up her last reserves of optimism. "Come on, Elsa, it'll be fun. Promise."

For the first time since she started shutting down, Elsa lifted her eyes from her sculpting and made eye contact with a family member. Disturbingly, Anna couldn't recognize any piece of her sister in that empty stare. She was lying through her teeth, and Elsa knew it. Elsa returned her focus to her ice block.

"Elsa," their mother warned sternly. "This is no longer an option. Staying cooped up in here is not healthy for you."

"I'm fine."

"You need to go out and make friends."

The ice block shattered after Elsa struck a particularly hard blow.

* * *

 

In the end, they literally dragged Elsa into the car. The sisters sat at opposite ends of the back seat, staring out the window. Every once in a while, their father attempted to start a conversation. It went nowhere. They were thirty minutes late.

Still trying to break through the tension in the air with his hollow jokes, their father deposited them in front of the school. As he drove off, Elsa plopped herself down on a bench in front of the school.

"What are you doing?" Anna sighed. "Let's go in."

Elsa shook her head. "I'm staying out here."

Anna knew she should object and insist that Elsa mingle with the crowd, experience the rush of the game, be a normal, well-adjusted kid, but she simply felt relieved that she wasn't going to have to tow Elsa along with her all night. What would her friends have thought?

"Okay. Fine. But if Mom and Dad get mad, it's totally your fault."

Elsa merely nodded.

"Hey, why are you so late?" Ella talk-shouted over the buzz of eighty other middle-schoolers.

"Nothing. Just craziness." Her friends squeezed over to make some room for her on their bleacher. At least the ticket lady had let her in for free. The white haired lady had laughed that she was too old to be bothered with retrieving the cash box from the principal's office.

"Is everything okay?" Rapunzel asked.

Anna grunted. "It's just stupid stuff."

"Elsa?"

"When is it not?"

"I'm sure it's not that bad."

Ella broke into loud screams as one of the John Charming scored. Anna resolved not to say anything and just enjoy the game.

* * *

 

By the time the game ended, Anna was in a full-blown rant.

"I'm just saying! Can't she just pretend like everything's good? For Mom and Dad's sake at least? How hard is it to be normal? It's not like she has some tragic backstory. She's my sister. We grew up together for god's sake. What excuse does she have?"

"I'm sure she's trying," Rapunzel soothed.

"No, she's not. She doesn't care that Mom and Dad are losing it every night. She won't even talk to her freaking therapist. We're all supposed to drop everything and 'give Elsa the support she needs,' but what's the point? She just wants to sit in a corner all day."

"I know you're frustrated, but just remember. She's your older sister—"

"Yeah. She's my  _older_  sister. I'm aware. So why am I the one carting her around? Why am I her babysitter. Isn't she supposed to watch out for me every once in a while? She doesn't appreciate anything we do for her. She doesn't care that Mom is practically going bald or that Dad is behind on all his paperwork and taking flak from the council because he's so busy trying to get her to just act like a normal kid. It's-it's infuriating because sometimes it's like no one ever wants to admit that she's driving us all crazy!"

An arm landed on her shoulder. "Calm down, Anna." Rapunzel's green eyes swam with concern.

All Anna's pent-up resentment had exploded out into the evening chill. It felt wonderful, like putting ice on a throbbing mosquito bite. Anna thought that if she flung out her arms, she might even be able to fly. "God, Rapunzel. You know everyone thinks she's a freak. And it's not even that she's shy. She just says the worst things, and I  _know_  she knows better because at home she's totally polite. She  _knows_  what's socially acceptable and not. It's like she wants to be this weirdo who spends all her time hacking at bits of ice. And I know that Ella and everyone else is laughing at her behind both our backs, and quite frankly I can't even blame them anymore. She  _is_  a freak."

"Anna!"

Only then did Anna realize they were standing outside the school, most kids finding their parents' cars and heading home. For the most part. Some of them were probably going to get high on god knows what before the night was out. She wondered how many people had overheard their conversation.

"Look, Anna, I'm sure things will work out with Elsa," Rapunzel reassured. "It's not that bad."

"She stopped doing her homework."

"Well, then I guess she's more like a regular kid than we thought."

"It's not a joke, Rapunzel. This is serious." Anna had heard the whispers in the middle of the night. Elsa must have too since they shared a bedroom. "I know she has this pride thing where she doesn't want to admit that it might be nice have friends, but does that mean she has to be so weird? Can't she see that we just want her to have a life? A real life. One where she's not locking herself in dark rooms, hammering at ice sculptures 24-7."

A car horn blared, and Rapunzel winced. "I need to go. It'll be okay. Elsa will always have you, right?"

"She needs more than me."

The honking continued. Some of the kids were beginning to stare. "Crap. Don't get so down, Anna. It's not like you." With that, Rapunzel scrambled away.

Scraping her fingers through her hair, Anna groaned. Where was Elsa, anyways? The benches were empty. She'd better find her sister quick, before their father arrived.

"Elsa?" she called softly, afraid to draw too much attention to herself. It had been stupid to leave her out here. Elsa had probably decided to walk home or something. Nevertheless, Anna rustled through the columns and bushes, hoping she wouldn't have to explain to her father how she had lost her sister.  _Older_ sister _._  Who apparently needed watching like a toddler?

"There you are!" she proclaimed victoriously when she nearly tripped over a sitting Elsa. "What have you been doing, playing in the dirt?"

Elsa didn't say anything, clearly still in whatever mood had settled over her earlier that evening. She'd been leaning against the side of the building, hidden by bushes and knees pulled up under her chin. Deciding to not to acknowledge Elsa's unresponsiveness, Anna pulled Elsa to her feet, knocking the dirt off her dress none-too-gently. She could feel the confused, somewhat-amused gazes of the other students when they emerged from the shrubbery.

Their mother came to pick them up shortly thereafter.

"You father needed to catch up on some work. I missed a turn," she explained when Anna asked why she'd been late. Elsa still refused to say anything. Anna could sense their mother's frustration.

It wasn't until they were lying in their separate beds in the darkness of their room, long after Anna had assumed her sister had fallen asleep, that Elsa finally opened her mouth. "I h-heard you earlier." Her words quavered. Anna's heart sank down into the mattress at the sound of Elsa swallowing something that might have been a sob. "When you were talking…to Rapunzel."

Anna waited for more, but Elsa didn't seem able to continue. She pretended to be asleep as her sister began to cry.

The silence afterwards hurt her ears.

* * *

 

Anna is sick to her stomach. The inside of her skull thuds dully. Of course her reaction to Elsa's cold shoulder is so physical. Her reaction to everything about Elsa has always been outlandishly visceral. When Elsa brushes off an imploring gaze, Anna thinks she might actually throw up.

Anna knows what she said wrong. Ariel had been nothing but kind, if more gregarious than most people. Hardly like Anna, who used to ask strangers about their day at work, can fault her for that. It's Elsa's birthday, and Anna was acting like a mopey bear, and Elsa came over to comfort her, and Anna just  _had_  to pick a fight. Anna understands why Elsa is sensitive about the word "weird", but she didn't mean it like  _that_. (Anna isn't even sure what  _that_ is.) But now Elsa won't talk to her, even though all Anna wanted was to spend time alone with her, and she's completely ruined this perfect day.

Part of her wants to blame Ariel, but Anna, even whiny, bratty Anna can't quite pull that one off any more than she can blame Hans for being a good guy when Elsa deserved one. She can't blame Elsa for not wanting to fall in love with her younger sister.

Anna needs to take responsibility for this.

The thrum of the crabs beating on their rocks echoed. Ahead, Elsa and Ariel entered the crab chamber. Anna dashed up to them.

"Well, I've got to set up for the show," Ariel announces. "Stick around. Maybe you want to see the Beluga whales."

Elsa nodded, still not sparing Anna a glance. "I guess we—"

"Wait, do you think you'll need any help?" Anna interrupted.

Elsa stares at her.

"What do you mean?" Ariel asked, clearly confused. "I'll be okay."

"No really," Anna insists. "You've been really nice, and I've been a downer all day. If you need any help, I'd be glad to give you a hand." Is that laying it on too thick? Maybe. But Anna is earnestly sorry and somehow she has to demonstrate that to Elsa.

"Well, if you want," Ariel says, gesturing for Anna to follow her.

They both turn towards Elsa who stiffly strides off. "I'm going to go look at the whales."

"Come back in time for the performance. You've got half an hour," Ariel calls after her cheerfully.

* * *

 

Anna perches on the edge of the tank, waiting for Ariel to resurface. The crab tank has been screened off from visitors while Ariel prepares for the performance. For some reason, she had thought that an aquarium should have something a little more…sophisticated than what seems to be an oversized fish tank with a cover. When she asked Ariel about it, the other girl set off on an explanation of filtration systems and water networks that left Anna woozy.

Although she's tempted to dip her feet into the cool waters, Anna resists. The last thing she needs is for a crab to swim up and fasten itself to one of her toes. Can crabs even swim? Sure they can scuttle along the sand, but can they—

"Hey! Can you hand me those green things?" A mass of red hair appears on the surface of the water.

Scrambling to her feet, Anna runs over to Ariel's bag and pulls out what appears to be two long green wires.

"Thanks," Ariel says, taking the wires from Anna's hands. "And by the way, I'm not trying to steal your girlfriend if that's what you were so worried about."

"What?" Anna shrieks. "Elsa is not—"

But Ariel is already free-diving to the bottom of the tank, and Anna can only splutter.

The next time Ariel's head pops out, Anna is ready.

"Elsa is not my girlfriend."

Ariel shrugs. "Could have fooled me. You looked like a decent couple. Now for the motion sensors. They're the little black box things."

"We're—" sisters, "—just friends."

"Well, clearly you have a crush on her," Ariel mentions, fiddling with something on one of the sensors while treading water. Then casually, she adds, "I think she likes you."

"What?!"

Again Ariel beats a hasty retreat beneath the waves and leaves Anna gaping like a fish on the concrete. The idea that someone else has finally picked up on Anna's lust is simultaneously terrifying and elating. Anna's brain tells her to run. Right. Now. But at the same time, Anna's heart is happy-dancing. Isn't great that Ariel thinks they're dating, that she thinks they might be a googd couple even though they spent an half an hour ignoring each other? She doesn't know they're sisters. Besides, Anna's blood sings, is Elsa so smitten with her that she can't hide it either?

Anna practically dies waiting for Ariel to show her face again. The redhead barely has time to open her mouth when Anna demands, "What do you mean you think she likes me?"

"What?" Ariel's brow furrows with confusion, and Anna nearly jumps into the crab-infested tank to shake her by the shoulders. "Oh yeah. I mean she keeps talking about you. Like I'll say something about different things that have been found in whale bellies and she'll say something like, 'I bet Anna would get a kick out of this,' or 'Anna eats everything.'"

Okay, so maybe Anna was hoping for 'Anna's eyes remind me of the deep blue sea," but she'll take what she can get.

"Oh, also, she kept turning around and looking for you, especially when we were walking somewhere. And even when I could tell she was kind of mad at you, she kept making me look to make sure you were still following us."

The delight and remorse hit Anna at the same time. On one hand, Elsa's obvious, constant interest in her whereabouts makes Anna glow. On the other, it dismays her to imagine Elsa so worried that Anna might abandon her on her birthday of all days.

"Anyways, we're almost done here. I'm going to need those clamps," Ariel says.

"Got it," Anna mumbles, rustling through the bag.

"Yeah, so I thought maybe the reason you wanted to come with me was to tell me to back off from your girl."

"Uh, not really." Anna hands over the clamps.

"Either way. You don't have to worry. I'm straight." Then, Ariel disappeared underwater, leaving Anna to her befuddled brain once more.

Is Anna gay? She did, after all, look up dating advice from lesbian websites. But for so long, Elsa has been the only figure in her view. The idea of looking at anyone else in an…evaluative way has been was flung out her mind years ago. Sexual orientation seemed like such a tiny issue when, hello: incest. She's never considered dating another girl. When she needs a date for a dance, Kristoff throws on a suit and Anna pulls on a dress, and they just do it.

This time as Ariel hauls herself out of the water, Anna makes a point to examine her in her bathing suit. She's nice. Anna's gaze lingers in all the, ahem, right places. But not like Elsa who makes Anna want to curl up into a ball and bury her face in that thick blond hair—not that Ariel's hair is wispy or anything, because it's definitely not, but emotionally, Anna doesn't get the same surge that she gets whenever Elsa so much as nods.

Ariel's a pretty girl with pretty legs that, yeah, Anna wouldn't mind running her hands along. But Elsa has been Anna's overarching fascination for years. Her love for Elsa has given her otherwise lackadaisical life a sense of direction. Elsa passes over the pandemonium of Anna's haphazard desires and suddenly they all snap into alignment, like iron filings beneath a magnet.

Ariel wraps a towel around herself and motions Anna over to a side door marked "Employees Only." "Just one more thing I think I could use your hand with and then I think you should go find your 'friend' and get her to come to the performance. I'll even sing a special song for you guys."

"Wait," Anna says, determined to make this right. "I was…kind of jealous and a jerk today, and basically Elsa got mad because I said you were weird. And you're not really that weird. I mean, my best friend's family owns, like, goats and reindeers, and he's always going on about them for hours but that's just one of the things that makes him…him. So yeah. I guess I'm just saying sorry."

Ariel regards her blankly for ten long seconds before dissolving into snickers. "You'd better have said I was weird! Being weird is awesome!"

"Uh…" Anna blinks stupidly.

"Anyways, I think you'll consider us even when you see what I'm about to make you do." Ariel smirks and beckons Anna closer. She approaches cautiously and looks into the tank that Ariel is pointing at.

"Holy crap! What is that thing?!"

That thing is the most massive crab Anna has ever seen. She's pretty sure that it's horror movie spider with scales. Though its body isn't that much bigger than some of the other large crabs in the Triton Aquarium, claw-to-claw it's at least twice the length of Anna's arm span. All its limbs crumple to squeeze into the kiddie-pool-sized transport tank.

"This is Herb."

"Herb?"

"Yeah. He's a Japanese spider crab." Ariel bends down, putting her face alarmingly close to the monster. "Who's my big boy?" she cooes.

A stream of bubbles rises in response.

"Er, are you sure you should be so…close to that thing?"

"Don't worry. He's really gentle, and we've already got bands on his pincers. I just need you to help me move him to the tank. He's like 36 pounds, and I don't want to risk dropping him."

"You want me to hold the 36 pound crab that looks like it could eat me?"

Ariel rolls her eyes. "He can't  _eat_  you, Anna. He's not even that heavy. It's just that he gets a little freaked out when he's being moved and starts flailing his legs a little."

"That is not comforting."

"Just put your hands under his belly and lift."

"Belly?" Anna mutters as she follows directions. "This thing has a  _belly_?"

"Well, technically I guess it's the pleon, but I figured you'd understand 'belly.'"

Anna merely grunts, too busy lifting to formulate a good comeback.

Okay, she wouldn't have had the presence of mind to compose one if she had a thesaurus, but whatever.

It's not actually that bad between the two of them. Some of his legs sway back and forth, but for the most part he's completely docile.

"Where's your phone?" Ariel asks abruptly.

"In my back pocket," Anna replies unthinkingly.

Suddenly Ariel releases her hold on the crab and darts around to Anna's back.

"Hey what—fuck! Herb!" Sagging forward with the unexpected weight, Anna swears and tries to twist around. The destabilization upsets Herb who begins to windmill his massive claws and legs. Anna teeters precariously as she tries to compensate for his constantly shifting weight, torn between wanting to throw the creature as far away as possible and genuine concern for his wellbeing if all 36 pounds of him hit the ground at once.

Don't tarantulas go splat if you drop them from your hand?

"Ariel! What the—"

"I'm doing you a favor."

Anna's voice grows increasingly shrill. "This is  _not_  a favor!" She ducks one wildly swinging claw before it can collide with her temple. "Are you taking  _pictures_?" she shrieks.

"Trust me," Ariel says, unfazed, "she'll forgive you for making puppy-fur coats once she sees the look on your face. Priceless."

"I do not make puppy-fur coats! What are you doing? Come help me with Herb." Herb's body moves in her hand. He seems to be moving… "Oh god, do these things bite?"

"Calm down, I'm sending her the pictures now."

"Who? Wait, you're sending these to Elsa–" Anna yelps as one of Herb's dangling legs brushed her thigh. "Oh god. Oh god. I'm going to die."

"Get a grip," Ariel scoffs, pushing the phone back into Anna's jeans.

"I'm trying. Notice how I haven't flung him across the room yet?! My grip is quite fine, thank you!"

"You are such a baby," the aquarium worker snorts as she crosses back to Anna's front. "Here." She hooks her fingers under and between Herb's legs, steadying him and halting the worst of his thrashing. "Let's just get him over the tank."

Panting with her entire body, Anna can only nod as they lower Herb into the water.

"Okay," Ariel declares brightly, sloughing off her towel and sliding in again. "I can take it from here. Go find Elsa and come see the show."

* * *

 

Elsa looks really pretty in the Beluga whale exhibit. Like if normal Elsa is a 10 on some dick's scale of hotness, Elsa in the Beluga whale exhibit is like a 62. Most of the crowd has gone up to mill about the Crab Pit, but Elsa stands right in front of the glass, watching the ghostly white whales drift by. Blue light dances on her pale hair and paler cheekbones. One of the whales, which in any other moment Anna could only have described as "ungainly," floats over Elsa's head, peering down at her through the glass.

For a moment, Anna forgets the camera flashes, the chug of industrial water pumps, the little children with cotton candy. Her world is reduced Elsa, beauty, and a blubbery whale.

Then, Elsa frowns at her phone. Anna snaps out of her stupor and jogs over to her sister, who chooses that moment to—"Elsa—oomf. Whoa!"

"Anna?" Anna's dramatic, epic, time-lag-worthy fall comes to an equally glorious halt when Elsa wraps her arms around her waist and heaves her back on her feet.

"Hi," Anna says breathlessly.

"What were you holding?" Elsa demands.

Right. She's still mad at Anna. But now Anna has no idea why.

"What?"

"The spider thing! Why would you ever pick that up?"

"Oh that." Anna doesn't know where her sudden sense of bravado comes from, but she rolls with it. "Pshh. That was just Herb. He's really nice once you get to know him."

"What? Anna, are you okay?"

Something about Elsa's blatant distress fills Anna up with warmth and worry. "I'm fine. I was just helping Ariel out," Anna says, reaching up to brush some of Elsa's bangs out of her face. Her chest feels tender and raw. "I'm really sorry about earlier. I was being a blockhead."

"Anna. I know I overreacted. It was a sensitive—"

"Yeah. I know it was sensitive. I  _knew_  it was sensitive, but I said it anyways. I'm sorry."

Elsa's eyes are very, very blue. Anna can't quite meet them.

"I didn't exactly help matters," Elsa replies ruefully. "Putting words in your mouth."

They share a silence.

"Whatever," Anna bursts out, determined to shake off this bummer mood. "We just kissed and made up. Let's go see the crab show."

Anna yanks the two of them out of the exhibit before Elsa can think too hard about what she just said, and then stumbles on the stairs when she realizes she's clutching Elsa's hand.

The crowd claps politely when a voice from the loudspeaker announces the start of the performance. Light drumming starts up. The crabs have been arranged on pedestals, so that even Anna and Elsa, leaning against the opposite wall in the back of the audience, can sort of see the performers. A group of crabs appears to pluck strings in coordination with the music. Anna wonders how much of it is actually the crabs playing and how much is the crab equivalent of lip-syncing. Claw-syncing?

"Oh look, it's Herb!" Anna waves wildly, as though he can recognize her. She swears he waves back. Either that or he was adjusting the gong next to him.

Suddenly flash of red and green appears from behind a rock. Wait, is that Ariel in a mermaid suit? Geez, how long can that girl hold her breath?

Ariel rises from the depths, settles herself on a platform decorated as a barnacled rock, and starts to sing.

"There you see her sitting there across the way. She don't got a lot to say, but there's something about her. And you don't know why, but you're dying to try. You wanna kiss the girl."

Anna remembers with a rush of embarrassment the "special song" Ariel was talking about earlier.

"Ugh," she buries her head in Elsa's shoulder, unable to meet anyone's eyes. Not even Herb's. Certainly not Ariel's. Her face might catch fire if she looks at Elsa's.

"Sha-la-la-la-la-la. My, oh my, are you just too shy? Ain't gonna kiss the girl? Sha-la-la-la-la-la. Ain't that sad? Ain't it shame? Too bad. You're gonna miss the girl."

A slender arm crosses over the back of Anna's neck. Lithe fingers grip her upper arm. She snuggles deeper into Elsa's embrace, surrounded by the scent of their garage and a light perfume and a bunch of stuff Anna can't quite place.

Like the soft pressure against the top of Anna's head that might be from Elsa's lips pressing down.

Anna doesn't say anything. The music and Elsa's deep breaths soothe her ears.


	8. Scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter of kissing. The first half is flashback.

8\. Scared

Elsa changed.

Lena Arendelle returned from their Saturday appointment with the youth therapist blinking dazedly. Trailing behind her, Elsa appeared equally drained.

"Hey, how did it go?" Anna asked with excessive cheer as though by being extra, extra supportive, she could make up for certain…words that may or may not have come out of her mouth. "I mean I'm sure it sucked, because therapists are stupid—"

"It went well," her mother interrupted.

"And really what good are they—Wait." Anna's words dried up. "Oh. Uh. Really? That's…um. That's great! What happened?"

"We talked."

Both of them swiveled their heads towards Elsa, who failed to elaborate any further. She merely kicked off her shoes and shuffled into the kitchen for a glass of water.

"What happened?" Anna repeated furtively, not wanting Elsa to hear in the next room.

Her mother had no such discretion. "Well," she began loudly, setting her bags on the stairs, "Dr. Hathaway says that Elsa seemed to be trying to open up today. They talked half an hour past our appointment time. She's really hopeful that this is going to be a breakthrough of sorts." Finally lowering her voice, she confided, "Dr. Hathaway thinks she might genuinely want to get better."

Recoiling instinctively, Anna hissed, "What do you mean 'get better'? Elsa's not sick!" The hypocrisy hung over her words like a cloud. She blew it off with a summer breeze. Sunshine and rainbows. All day. Every day.

Taken aback, her mother studied Anna's face carefully. Heat rushed to her cheeks as she tried her best to look nonchalant. "Elsa's not sick, no. But I do want her to reach out to the people around her. She can't rely on us forever."

* * *

 

"Elsa?" Anna called out softly, slipping through the garage door. It was chilly and dusty. "Can we talk?"

Her sister was crouched over her workbench in the corner. Their father had long since stopped parking his station wagon indoors to give her space to work. She didn't respond to Anna's request.

"Geez, it's cold in here. You sure you don't need a space heater or something?" A faltering smile fought its way onto Anna's face.

"The ice would melt."

"Right."

Elsa got out of her chair to dig through her toolbox, surfacing with a pair of goggles and something that looked like a particularly destructive dental tool. It made a loud whirring noise when Elsa flicked the switch.

"Er…" WZHHH. "Elsa?"

"Yes?"

"About the other night." WZHHH. "When I was talking to Rapunzel." WZHHH. "You know I didn't mean it."

Elsa finally stopped the buzzing-tool-thingy and pulled her goggles up, looking Anna directly in the eyes. "Yes, you did."

WZHH—"No, I didn't! Elsa—" ZHHH—"Elsa!" ZHHH—"ELSA! Will you just put that thing down and listen to me!?"

"Elsa, come on." Anna strode forward, laying her hand over Elsa's. Vibrations migrated from the tool up Elsa's fingers and into Anna's palm. "Elsa, please."

The vibrations ceased. Elsa yanked her goggles up again and turned away on the pretext of putting away her materials. "I'm sorry," she said.

"I–wait. What?" Anna fell back startled. "Why are you sorry?  _I'm_  sorry. I shouldn't have said that stuff to Rapunzel. I was being stupid and self-involved and—"

"Because you were right." Cracks appeared in Elsa's voice.

"Are you crazy? I was stupidly, stupidly wrong. I love you, Elsa. No matter what. I don't want you to be anyone other than yourself."

Elsa's shell shattered. "What does that even mean? What am I supposed to do with that?" she spat bitterly. "Be yourself. But not the self that's too weird or too quiet. Or the one that is too loud and obnoxious and says stuff no one else wants to hear."

"Elsa…" Anna trailed off. "I love you," she said finally, not sure what else she could say. Reaching out, she tugged her sister closer by her narrow shoulders. Instead of returning the embrace, Elsa stood stiffly inside it, tears falling down her chin rather than into the fabric of Anna's shirt. "Don't worry about being anything. I'll always love you."

"B-but it upsets you. When I'm not the person you want me to be," she choked out.

God, now Anna was about to start crying. "I'm an idiot. Sometimes I want things that I think will make you happy, you know? But it's really up to you. Whatever you do, I'll be here. I promise." She gave into the urge to squeeze Elsa tighter.

Elsa pushed herself out of Anna's arms, stumbling forward to stand on her own two feet.

"I'm going to change, Anna."

"What? For me? Don't—"

"For me," Elsa declared stiffly.

"Oh," Anna said, feeling foolish.

"I'm going to be better."

* * *

 

At first, Anna couldn't see anything different. Elsa was just Elsa, the quirky sister that Anna had always known and loved…and occasionally complained about. But that was what sisters were for, right? Complaining about each other. Getting into fights. Making up.

Except that Anna always felt another sort of intensity, of urgency, when it came to Elsa. Like being close wasn't enough. Like sisters wasn't enough. But she wasn't going to dwell on that now. Not when Elsa was making such startling, breathtaking progress.

It started with reports from their mother that Elsa was talking to the therapist and had even invited her mother in for some sessions. Elsa didn't seem to have much trouble reading and understanding body language or picking up on social norms, even if she isolated herself from social situations. After considering and discarding various autism-spectrum disorders, Dr. Hathaway concluded that her patient was just naturally shy. Their sessions, Anna heard, largely focused on buffering Elsa's wavering self-esteem.

"Prosopagnosia," Lena Arendelle announced victoriously one Saturday afternoon.

"Onomatopoeia," Anna replied offhandedly, assuming that they were playing some sort of word game.

"No," Elsa gently corrected, "prosopagnosia with topographical agnosia."

Blinking, Anna turned to face them. "Huh?"

"Dr. Hathaway thinks I might have prosopagnosia with topographical agnosia. It's genetic."

"It explains a lot actually," their mother chimed in.

"Wait. Is that a disease? Oh god, what—"

"It's not a disease," Elsa interrupted. A short jingling laugh fell from her lips, which was completely inappropriate since Anna had been worried about her sister  _dying_  two seconds ago. "At least, not really. It's a neurological condition."

Anna glared. "That is not comforting."

"It's nowhere near life-threatening." Elsa paused. "It's just that the part of my brain that's supposed to recognize and identify people's faces and locations is a little…off. So I have a really hard time recognizing people, even people I know really well, if I'm not expecting to see them somewhere. And I always end up getting lost unless I'm really careful about here landmarks are because I don't have a gut sense of where I've been."

"So…you can't recognize people and places.  _Just_  people and places."

Elsa frowned. "Well, occasionally objects too, but not so much. I did once wonder why there was a toothbrush on the dining room table before I realized it was one of my ice picks."

"How is this new exactly? I mean, you've always gotten lost before. And we sort of knew that you were bad at remembering names."

Elsa shook her head. "Not names, faces."

"Actually, I may have some mild form of it too," their mother broke in.

"Again, how is this new information?"

"It's not really," Elsa admitted. "I always knew I was bad at it, but I didn't realize it was an actual  _thing_  that there's a name for."

Evidently, having a name for it was all Elsa needed. On one hand, it wasn't an all-encompassing explanation for Elsa's reclusiveness. After all, they suspected that it had been passed down from Lena, who never seemed to have quite as much trouble coping. (Though she revealed that over the course of her life she had instinctively developed mechanisms to compensate for her poor recognition skills.) But rather than being crushed by the label of being different, Elsa seemed to find it liberating. There was something solid for her to work towards. She visited a few neurologists who explained most prosopagnosiacs lived fairly normal lives, honing their ability to detect specific gaits, styles of dress, and voices. Dr. Hathaway encouraged her to socialize more while being open about the fact that she was face-blind so that new acquaintances wouldn't feel offended if she couldn't recognize them from across the room.

Anna couldn't help being skeptical at first. Didn't everyone complain about being bad with names and faces? Or having a hopeless sense of direction? But when she thought about it, lots of things suddenly made sense: Elsa's disinterest in live-action movies and TV shows, where she couldn't distinguish which character was which until they started talking; that time when they first put full-length mirror in their bedroom and Elsa shrieked that there was a stranger in their room—who turned out to be her own reflection; or all those instances when Elsa couldn't, for the life of her, figure out where Uncle Alex's house was even though they'd been going there once every few months since they were toddlers.

It gave Elsa confidence, knowing that maybe, at least part of her problems stemmed from some "condition" which she could understand.

She still found it difficult to meet new people in school where her reputation as Snow Queen was well grounded and difficult to shake, but she'd started talking to some of Mr. Geppetto's other sculpting students. Elsa grew more relaxed, less withdrawn. At the encouragement of both her parents and therapist, she'd begun paying more attention to her wardrobe, pop culture, little things that might help her fit in.

Despite not being a social butterfly by anybody's standards, she attended the eighth grade social at the end of the school year. The sight of Elsa in that elegant midnight blue gown made Anna's heart ache.

* * *

 

Early in her eighth grade year, Anna decided that Ella Cinders just wasn't worth it. There was part of Anna, the part which had a hard time walking past an old lady crossing the parking lot without offering to help with her bags, that felt somehow beholden to Ella's demanding, self-centered, supercilious friendship.

Ella had been the one who taught her how to put on eyeshadow, shared the secrets of what actually happened when two people got into bed together at the end of a TV drama, and showed her how to bargain shop in the mall. It was hard not to feel for the girl. Her mother had died two years ago. Her father was living on disability checks after he'd thrown his back in his job at the lumber plant downtown. Ella had a job that she walked to every weekend and was looking to take on an afternoon shift at one of the local coffee shops on Main Street, even if she was underage. Anna had to admire her work ethic and resilience.

But managing Ella's ostentatious meltdowns on a weekly basis was exhausting. She'd always been a little capricious, prone to exaggerating small misfortunes into great personal tragedies and constantly convinced that someone, somewhere, was stabbing her behind her back, but after John moved up to the high school and refused to be seen associating with lowly middle-schoolers, her fits became disturbingly tearful and her moods almost comically volatile.

Rumors circulated that she'd started getting into "some heavy shit" on Saturday nights.

Anna began to find little ways to pull away from Ella's influence, which, lucky for her became easier as Ella seemed to gather around her a new crowd of friends. The transition was made all the smoother by the fact that she still had Rapunzel to keep her company and that she didn't have lunch with Ella that year.

In the meantime, Elsa had made quite a splash at the high school. Snow Hills High took in students from the towns neighboring Northam and thus had a much larger student body. Lena and Andrew hemmed and hawed. Would Elsa's newfound confidence shatter in the face of so many strange teenagers?

It didn't.

Once she traded in calico for cotton-polyester-spandex blends, her attire stopped drooping dowdily and started radiating splendor. She still stood out since only a few girls opted to wear skirts every day, but now it was a trait that her peers admired rather than derided. Their parents relaxed as Elsa settled into life at the high school, watching, mollified, as their daughter joined the art club, started acquiring a friend set and took to her academics with renewed vigor. If anything, each new face was a chance at a fresh start.

It was hard not to fall in love with her. There were boys lining up the street to take her to a movie, (well, there was one, but that was more than anyone could have expected a year ago, and way more than Anna was comfortable with) and though flattered, Elsa was still bashful and nervous. At the behest of her hovering father, she turned him down.

"Good," their mother said approvingly. "There's no point in dating a boy before either of you can drive."

Elsa blossomed. Anna gazed.

Sometimes it felt like she physically couldn't look away. She didn't realize how much of her everyday life had revolved around Elsa (was she still sitting alone at lunch? had she gone on the late bus? was the garage cold? was she just quiet or actually upset?) until Elsa started drifting where Anna couldn't follow. It was strange to imagine Elsa, who for so long almost never ventured from the brick walls of their house, suddenly inhabiting an entire world beyond Anna's scope.

All Anna wanted to do was cast a line and reel her back.

Instead she sat forlornly and waited for Elsa to come home, which sometimes didn't happen until dinner when one of their parents would pick her up on their way back from work. Maybe "forlornly" was stretching it. Anna had her own friends and her own life. But she'd never had to share Elsa's before.

Anna was wary of Elsa's new friends. Some of them seemed too convenient. Where were these people two years ago? Either laughing at Elsa in the lunch line or tolerating those who were. It wasn't a fair accusation for Anna to make given that most of them hadn't gone to Northam Middle and Anna herself was hardly a knight-in-shining-armor, but she let the resentment fester anyways. It was bratty and selfish, but late at night when Anna mulled these sorts of things over, listening to the rise and fall of her sister's breath on the other side of the room, judiciousness rarely was a priority.

Usually, Anna lay awake at night imagining what it would be like to run her fingers through Elsa's hair, pushing her nose against Elsa's chest, placing soft kisses on her cheeks. At first Anna's midnight brain chalked it up to a desire for affection and intimacy, another side effect of the normal jealousy which came from having to share a loved one with someone else. But the longing which engulfed her was devastating. And it wasn't as if Elsa was stingy with her time.

They spent weekends watching action movies together with Anna shouting scene-by-scene narrations until Elsa burst out that she wasn't blind. At which point Anna would sit in repentant silence until Elsa asked quietly for her to clarify whether the brown-haired guy shooting at helicopters was the same brown-haired guy the protagonist had been talking with in the opening scenes of the movie. Taking that as permission to recommence babbling, Anna quickly filled up the shooting scenes with her own commentary: "What sort of truck explodes when you shoot it in the tire?! And then the entire metal frame sets on fire?! Where's the accuracy? That's supposed to be 'raw'?"

In the winter, they revived their old tradition of ice fortresses and snowmen. Anna stuffed snow down Elsa jacket, delighting in her sister's shrieks. When Elsa reached to shake the snow out of her shirt, the sight of her reddened flesh was absolutely captivating. Anna loved Elsa in winter, her wan cheeks flushed from cold.

Sometimes the air between them hung dense and heavy with an unknown emotion. More than once, Anna caught her sister staring at her. She stared right back.

Really, they were closer than ever. It just wasn't enough. Maybe it had never been.

On days when Elsa stayed after with the art club, Anna was bored. Eighth grade homework was easy. Like any true millennial, she wasted her time surfing the Internet, shooting zombies and reading the weirdest top 10 lists. And learning about sex.

Her mother had of course sat her down one afternoon in the dining room, pulled out an old anatomy textbook from her college years, and stoically explained the physiology of the…act—or at least the one act that she deemed appropriate for Anna to know. But it was the Internet that gave Anna the details. And the pictures. And all that other good stuff. When her mother had explained it, the entire thing had seemed wholly undesirable. The guy's part swells up, and he sticks it between your legs. Then, babies. But clicking around on lonely weekday afternoons quickly unearthed a treasure trove of other...things that people did and fantasized about.

Anna joined them in fantasizing. Once flipping through the television channels, she landed on a teen drama. Two girls were kissing. Anna flushed and watched, mesmerized. She found all the episodes where the girls were featured online. When she finished those, she started looking for other series.

There were some girls in her grade who were kind of cute. Tiana. Jasmine. Even Ella. Objectively, Anna could see why the guys were crazy about Ella, with her styled blond hair and her slender face. But as far as Nordic beauty went, Anna figured Elsa was by far beautifuller—er, more beautiful—paler both in complexion and hair color. Her face was rounder, fuller, with pockets of baby fat that made her cheeks protrude when she smiled and those vast, crystalline eyes. Not to mention the deftness with which she carved figures from an ice block, wielding a chainsaw with a grace that ballerinas could only dream of, or how she always managed to catch Anna off-guard with a brutally hilarious remark.

Yep. Elsa was pretty much the most beautiful person Anna had ever known.

 _That's_  why it made her chest seize whenever Elsa would whisper, "You look really beautiful today," in the mornings. That was all.

* * *

 

"Hey," Elsa called into the dark of their bedroom one weekend in February. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah," Anna replied. Every muscle in her body, which had been drowsy and loose a few moment before, suddenly contracted. Anna thought they might tear themselves off her bones.

"Valentine's Day is on Tuesday."

"Yep," Anna said, tensing.

"There's a guy…in my English class. He wants me to go see a movie with him."

"Oh." One syllable responses seemed to be Anna's specialty.

"I'm not going," Elsa rushed out. "Just, I don't know."

"Don't know what?"

"What I'm doing." A moment of hesitation passed.

Restlessly, Elsa rolled out of her bed. She was halfway to Anna's side of the room before she stopped, lost. "I-sometimes I feel like a phony. Like someone's going to remember that I'm the weirdo who—you know—wasn't all there. Like they're going to suddenly realize that they don't like me."

Anna sat up, head spinning. "That's ridiculous!" Elsa rubbed her elbows against her palms. "Come here."

Galvanized by the invitation, Elsa stumbled the rest of the way to Anna's bed, sinking into the mattress and her arms. "You're warm," she murmured.

"Lie down," Anna insisted gently.

Any mentally competent human being would be flabbergasted and breathless and freaking dizzy if Elsa crawled into bed with them one night, right? Normal, Anna told herself, normal. It felt wonderful, having Elsa pressed up against her on this tiny twin bed in the dark.

"You're amazing. They were just too stupid to see it, and now they're probably all too embarrassed to admit it," Anna whispered into her sister's ear. The answering sigh was soft, shuddering.

Elsa shifted and wriggled until she was facing her sister. Anna swept her hair out of her eyes and stroked the protrusion of Elsa's hipbones through the fabric of her nightgown. "I think that—I don't know. I just-I wanted you to be proud of me."

"Of course I'm proud of you."

Elsa opened her mouth as though to say something else and then shut it again. She propped herself up on one elbow, peering at Anna's face. "You're really pretty," she said at last.

Anna could feel the surge of blood to her cheeks, hot in the cool winter night. "You say that all the time."

"You're pretty all the time."

Then, Elsa abruptly demolished the six inches of space between their faces, and Anna realized that she had fallen in love.

* * *

 

After a late lunch of turkey breast sandwiches at the local park by the duck pond, Anna spends the afternoon leading Elsa through a tour their favorite childhood haunts, which ends only a few streets over from their house, on the deserted grounds of their former elementary school.

"Do you remember that time we hung strings of macaroni from the trees here so that we could have Christmas in July?" she shouts, gesturing wildly.

A single, pale eyebrow lifts. "How could I? You got stuck in that oak tree, I almost had to call the fire department."

"Oh yeah. I forgot about that." Briefly, Anna wonders how many near-encounters she's had with the fire department that she's forgotten about but brushes it off in favor hip-checking Elsa into a tree root.

"Hey—"

"I've got you," Anna assures, seizing a fragile elbow and letting Elsa lean back from her for a moment, like they're dancing the tango. Congratulating herself on how smooth she is, she yanks Elsa back on her feet, releasing the girl and darting away. "Catch me if you can!"

Spluttering plaintively, Elsa stands there for a second, watching her sister dive through the woods. "What are you doing?"

"Run, run, run as fast you can! You can't catch me! I'm faster than you." For whatever reason, Anna finds her parody of the nursery rhyme absolutely hilarious and nearly chokes trying to laugh and run at the same time.

"You're not funny," Elsa gasps, crashing through the undergrowth in her dress.

"You're right." Anna calls out agreeably. She turns to wave at Elsa, grinning. "I'm hysterical, and you're just slow."

"Anna," Elsa warns.

"Come on, slowpoke. It'll be dark when we get there at this rate."

"We have an actual destination?"

"As a matter of fact we do," Anna declares proudly. Frowning as she watches Elsa struggle through the brush, skirt catching on thorns and branches, Anna bounds back to her side. "Sorry. I should have warned you that it was going to be a little rough."

"Really?" Elsa mutters.

Anna wilts at the irritation in her voice. "I…yeah. Sorry about that."

Immediately, Elsa softens. "It's not a big deal, Anna. Just a little tangled up is all."

"Here." Anna helps free the skirt from a particularly nasty set of prickers with a sharp jerk. Chuckling abashedly, she admits, "We probably should have taken the path instead."

She waits for a sardonic response for several seconds and gets the wind knocked out of her when Elsa confesses, "I like it…when you're spontaneous."

"What? Really? 'Cause like you always seem kind of annoyed."

"Well, sometimes I feel like I'm supposed to be annoyed. And I think you wouldn't have as much fun if I weren't. But I like it. I think it's fun. I just don't like saying it." Elsa shifts her weight, looking a little uncomfortable.

Anna doesn't know how to respond to that. It feels too heavy, too much like Elsa is offering up an admission of their entire mess of a relationship, where Elsa just won't say that she wants Anna as much as Anna wants her.

"Oh, well. Thanks. To the path then?"

Elsa gives a trembling nod.

They get to the clearing as the sky darkens. It looks like it might storm that night. Anna flops down on the long unkempt grass, extending a hand in invitation.

Elsa kneels next to her.

"This is where we first built Olaf, isn't it?" she asks. "I didn't know you could get at it from this side."

"Yeah. I remember I was so mad at Mom and Dad that I decided to run away from home." She spread her limbs in the grass until Elsa is sitting between Anna's right arm and right leg. They stare up at the gathering clouds. "Geez, I don't even remember what it was."

"You were upset because they said you had to wear that Winnie the Pooh hat if wanted to go outside," Elsa reminds her, lying back and resting her head on Anna's arm.

Smiling, Anna rolls halfway over, burying her nose in Elsa's hair. "Oh, god. I remember now. Man, I hated that thing."

"So of course your solution was to run away from home, in the dead of night, mid-January, without changing out of your pajamas," Elsa remarks dryly.

"I put on boots!" she protests. "And gloves."

"The only reason you weren't soaking by the time I found you was because it was so damn cold out that none of the snow was actually melting when it got on your clothes."

"I was fine," Anna insists glibly, sucking in lung-fulls of citrus-jasmine shampoo.

"I was scared." Anna stiffens at Elsa's sudden shift in tone. "I was scared you were going to freeze to death, because you were shivering so bad, but you wouldn't go home until we built a freaking snowman. I couldn't drag you back myself, and I was scared to leave you to get Mom and Dad to force you to come back in case something happened while I was gone. I wasn't even sure I knew how to get back even though we had left tracks everywhere."

"Elsa," she breathes, but her sister won't meet her eyes. It's a truth that's too tender to tell face-to-face.

"And finally I just built the stupid snowman. I was rushing so much that he turned out looking like, I don't even know what, but you were so excited and happy and  _cold_ , and I was so worried and mad, because then you wanted to play with him, and I wanted you to come home before something bad happened. And I couldn't  _really_  be mad at you because you were so delighted, but part of me was ready to kill something by the time we got back."

"I didn't know," Anna says hesitantly.

She's always assumed that memories of Olaf bring her sister the same unadulterated joy and nostalgia that she experiences. When she remembers that night, she recalls the cold and the dark and the fear of getting lost, but all of that shrivels in the overwhelming warmth that Elsa carried into the woods with her.

Her juvenile misery and self-pity had melted at the sight of her sister trudging towards her, a pink winter coat in one hand and a flashlight in the other. The chill was a distant throb, dimly superimposed on the crisp image of Elsa's adroit hands, building something from the snow, something that was for Anna alone. And now to hear that the remembrance is different for Elsa, innocent bliss corrupted by anxiety and frustration.

"I thought he made you happy too." Immediately the guilt sets in. She shouldn't have brought Elsa here, to this place that reminds her of upsetting events. Damn it, she believed she had come up with the perfect place to take Elsa for the end of their day, and it winds up being some pit of despair and angst. Hands shaking, she tugs at the grass. "God, I mean—if I had known—"

"He does," Elsa interjects hastily, wrapping an arm around Anna's side and tugging her close. "He makes me happy. I was definitely angry at you, but I always sucked at staying mad at you, especially over something that made you so happy." She paused to take a deep breath. "He was sort of a symbol of what I could do. No matter how upset you were, it made me feel special to know that all I had to do to cheer you up was build a snowman. Even when I didn't know what to say to you, I could always build Olaf and it would be okay."

"He was special for me too." Anna swallows, uncertain if she should continue or not. Tonight is about recklessness though, right? She plunges on. "He was the ultimate proof that you loved me, in some way, at some point in time, even if…even if you weren't talking to me right that moment because…for whatever reason," Elsa flinches, but Anna simply hugs her tighter and keeps moving her lips, "I knew that you loved me, and that I meant something to you. He made…everything else…bearable."

It's the closest Anna has ever come to acknowledging the silent conflict of their early high school years.

"I'm sorry." The words fall like pebbles into the lake of Anna's anguish.

Anna doesn't know what she was expecting exactly, but it wasn't an apology. Not like this anyways. Maybe more along the lines of "I'm sorry, but it was necessary," or "You know why I had to do it," or even outright silence. This unqualified remorse seems totally out of place.  _Anna_  is the brat who hauled Elsa into the cold, the impatient and ungrateful little sister, the moon-eyed and needy rejected lover who won't take no for an answer.

She asks, "Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything."  _Yes, you did_ , part of Anna's brain chants.  _I was confused. You shut me out._

"I knew it hurt you, but I didn't stop. That's kind of how all crimes work, right?"

Again, Anna is speechless. Finally, she forces herself to articulate something. "Just…promise, whatever happens you won't do it again."

"Promise."

"I mean it, Elsa. It scares me to think that you're leaving so soon. I feel like—," another big confession, "—like we're running out of time."

Two sets of blue eyes converge. There's no trace of humor or condescension in Elsa's voice when she points out, "We're only teenagers, Anna. We have our whole lives left."

"It won't be the same. Elsa, it's your eighteenth birthday, you're an adult now. You're going to leave and have your own family and never come back. We'll talk maybe once a week on the phone, and then I won't hear from you for a few months and wonder whether it would be weird if I texted you—"

Elsa breaks into Anna's outburst. "I'm going to college, not going off to marry some foreign dignitary. It's only Weselton."

"Yeah, and you'll meet all the people there, and they'll be the ones you talk to, late at night when you can't sleep." The idea of not having Elsa sleeping in the same room as her is terrifying. "They'll know which professors are funny or irritating. They'll be the ones you watch movies with and quote lines with. You'll have all these new stories that I won't be a part of."

Faintly, Anna is aware that she sounds like a clingy parasite, but the fear of losing Elsa is all-consuming now that she's let it out from its box.

"We're losing all these chances. There are less than ten Wednesdays before you go."

"Anna, calm down." Suddenly, Anna's face is pressed against Elsa's collarbone, and it's all she can do not to paint Elsa's neck and chest with desperate kisses. "You're still my sister." A little bit of Anna dies when she hears that.

"I'm scared too," Elsa admits.

Surprised, Anna glances up. "Of what?"

"Of screwing up. I have no clue what I want to do for a job or even a major. And whether I want to be with Hans or if I'm ready to meet all the new people." Elsa's fingers flex against Anna's waist, and Anna's abdomen twitches. She wants to scoop all the anxiety out from inside Elsa and replace it with something warm.

"You're not going to screw up. I screw up. You hack chunks of ice into bits."

Almost involuntarily, Elsa snorts. "Why are you so funny when you make absolutely no sense?"

"Hey, I'm working hard trying to make you feel better. Try to at least pretend to appreciate it."

"My humblest apologies, your highness," Elsa simpers, dripping with faux-servility. "What shall you have me do to ameliorate my crimes?"

Of course, Anna's brain takes that straight to the gutter. Shoving aside the image of a partly undressed Elsa kneeling at her feet, Anna grumbles, "Quit making fun of me and snuggle."

"But what ever shall I do if I can't make fun of you? My livelihood!" Elsa exclaims, as she burrows into Anna's side. "My children—"

"Your children?" Anna snickers.

"Yes, my children," she proclaims loftily. "I'll have you know Young Angus is quite proficient with the blade."

"Angus? Angus?! You are not allowed to name our—" oh, shoot, "—any children. Ever." Heart pounding, Anna waits to see if Elsa would pick up on her slip.

The suspense stretches out Anna's heart like a rubber band, and she isn't sure whether she's eager for it to snap back or not. There's this snuffling noise, and Anna worries that Elsa is crying because her heretofore secret dream to name all the newborn babies in the world has just been crushed. And then Elsa is laughing, laughing uncontrollably. Her body convulses, jabbing Anna in the side, and the spectacle is so ridiculous that before she knows it, both of them are cackling, spitting up great wads of glee.

Still burbling with laughter, Anna sits up slightly and divests herself of her shirt, bundling it under their heads as a pillow and leaving herself in only a tank top. Instantly, Elsa's fingers land on her bare upper arm, and Anna can't decide whether it was a good idea or not.

Suppressing the last of her giggles, Elsa skims her hands over Anna's shoulders and arms. "You're going to be cold."

A surge of bravado. "You'll warm me up."

"Don't count on it," Elsa mumbles into Anna's neck, shivering a little. Fire shoots right down into Anna's toes.

Even in the without the sunlight, she can see the pink spreading across her cheeks. Summoning her reserves of courage, Anna adds, "You look really pretty. All the time." And then, because Elsa's still quiet, she plucks one of Elsa's hands off her right arm and caresses the calloused palm with one thumb, listening for the hitch in Elsa's breathing. "I'm going to miss you."

"Christ, Anna," she exhales, propping herself up on her elbows. Her eyes are heavy with an old fervor.

They kiss.


	9. Evasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disasters, explosions, bad stuff.

9\. Evasion

For Anna, it's like her entire world has lit up all at once. Every cell in her body has aligned itself with Elsa and the cheekbones brushing against her own and the hands in her hair. The last time they kissed, she had been too stunned to do much other than choke, and then Elsa panicked, fled their room and spent the next three years avoiding her like the plague.

This time will be different if Anna has to bang both their heads against a rock. Which is exactly happens as she tries to flip them over, massaging Elsa's lower lip with her tongue.

"Mmph."

"Are you ok—"

"Don't stop," Elsa gasps against her mouth, pulling her under the waves again.

Thunder rumbles in the distance. Anna doesn't think she  _can_ stop. Her hips jerk erratically against Elsa's, the hem of her sister's dress catches on her knee and she can feel the fabric riding up, exposing undulating, thrillingly warm legs. One or both of them is moaning between kisses, and Anna's brain is having a stroke. Everything's so  _hot_.

Desperate for a little distance, Anna's tongue goes exploring down the side of Elsa's neck. It's probably too much too soon, but Anna can't bring herself to care with this body shuddering underneath her.

For Anna, this the ultimate proof that her love is requited, a tonic for her flagging devotion. After so many years of rejection, this is Anna's prize, acknowledgement of their shared desire.

She has no idea what this is to Elsa.

Because when she fuses their lips together a second time, she feels something wet against her cheekbones, and Elsa can't seem to stay in the kiss. She keeps breaking away and exhaling these violent, breathy  _sobs_ , and Anna stops before she fully realizes that Elsa is crying.

"Hey," she murmurs, running her hands through Elsa's hair, "it's alright." Anna's not sure what, precisely, is alright, but she's determined that _everything_  will be alright through sheer force of will if necessary. Curling up, Elsa turns away from her and in on herself. Anna tries to pry her open again, back into her arms, but Elsa won't have it. She knocks Anna's arms away clumsily.

"Don't—" she snaps, voice quavering. "Don't touch me. Please."

Now Anna is crying too, partly because she's always been a sympathetic crier, partly because she can't stand the sight of Elsa's distress, and mostly because this fresh rejection is more than she can take.

"Elsa, please," she says through the thickness in her throat. "Let's talk about this."

Elsa doesn't hear her, fingers tugging at her own hair, chanting almost catatonically, "I can't. I can't. I can't."

From some angle, in someone's twisted storybook, Anna imagines, they must look hilarious. Two teenage sisters bawling their eyes out like babies in the middle of the woods. Probably picking up deer ticks by the dozen. The little bit of Anna's brain that can detach itself from her emotions orders her to dry her tears because  _this_  is ridiculous.

There's still no sign that either of them will be coherent enough to work things out any time soon.

The rain starts falling. Anna seizes it as an excuse to at least get Elsa moving.

"Come on. Please, get up. We have to go home."

"I can't. I can't. I can't."

She almost can't hear Elsa over the gush of rain. "Yes, you can. Stop saying that, Elsa. You're scaring me."

Thunder again, like logs tumbling down the mountainside. In the distance, lightning flashes. It's an alarm siren for Anna. Get out of the woods, you idiot. Galvanized by purpose, she wipes the tears and rain from her eyes and reaches for Elsa's shoulders. "Let's go, Elsa. Come on."

Elsa shrugs her off. "I can't."

"We have to go home, Elsa!" She shouts this time, over the wall of rain and thunder.

"I'm never going back. I can't do it anymore."

"Elsa, we're going home!" Some barricade of patience collapses in Anna, and she wrenches Elsa up to her feet. "Quit being a moron and walk!" She hates this, hates seeing the weakness in Elsa, hates watching her crumble. They are going to get into the fucking car and work this out like normal, rational people.

Like normal, rational sisters who lust after each other.

Anna's already made up her mind. No turning back now.

A few yards into the trees, Elsa staggers back into herself, twisting out of Anna's grasp and striding down the path head bowed. Anna lets her. She feels like she's getting whiplash. Elsa needs her for years, suddenly finds her self-confidence, then kisses her, then pushes her away, then gets a  _boyfriend_ , starts acting normal with Anna again, kisses her again, and pushes her away. Again.

No wonder Anna's so messed up.

And exhausted and wet and not sure whether she should be admiring her sister's curves in that soaked dress, and if she shouldn't, what the reason for holding back for is anymore. The rain saps her strength and determination.

Elsa pauses at an intersection with no sense of where they came from. Anna trudges past her, wordlessly, onto the left fork, hearing the squelch of Elsa's shoes behind her. Let her sister figure out whether to gape at  _her_  for once.

* * *

 

For the next three days, Anna broods and mopes and glowers and occasionally pretends to be a normal teenager for her parents' sakes. After they return home the night of Elsa's birthday, she escapes into the shower, deciding to let Elsa explain how her birthday celebrations went to their curious parents.

Kristoff asks if she wants to hang out. She ignores his texts until they take on a faintly hysterical tone. Merida and Rapunzel start blowing up her phone. Even Eugene gets in on it.

_Hey fiestypants, yru makin ur hubby sleep on the couch?_

Anna's reply is the same to all of them.  _Busy_.  _Not now._

If Anna were actually a normal teenager dealing with unrequited love, she'd probably hide in her room, but as an almost-normal teenager dealing with unrequited, non-platonic love for her sister whom she happens to share a room with, it's not exactly an option.

What's more messed up is that she can't quite figure out if she should call it "unrequited" or "requited but not acknowledged"—which is far too many syllables—or just "screwy." It's not even clear who's avoiding whom anymore. Anna wakes up ridiculously early every morning to eat breakfast and brush her teeth, waits until Elsa is out of their room to put on clothing, and generally attempts to be anywhere her sister is not. Which is surprisingly easy since Elsa holes up in the garage, or drives down to Weselton to meet Mr. Geppetto...or hangs out with Hans.

Anna doesn't even have the energy to care anymore.

That's a lie. Anna cares so fucking much. But she doesn't have the energy to chase after Elsa, humiliate herself, expose her desperation and vulnerability, only to get absolutely nowhere. Not even nowhere. Backwards. Elsa was at least talking to her at the beginning of the summer. Now they don't even look at each other.

Anna feels like she might suffocate.

Their parents are getting suspicious.

"How was your day, Anna?" her father asks kindly over spaghetti.

"Fine."

"What did you do?"

"Not much."

Elsa moves noodles around her plate.

Their mother snorts. "Maybe you should get a job."

Normally, Anna would be offended, but it's almost starting to sound like a good idea.

On the weekend their parents set off for a dinner-reception-fundraiser-thing in Weselton to support one of their father's friends in the mayoral elections. Usually, Anna is grateful not to be dragged off to political functions, and thankful that her father doesn't hold an elected position, but right now she'd like nothing better than to be a forty-minute drive away from Elsa.

Restlessly, she flips to another television channel, irked by the sound of buzzing from the garage. She grinds her teeth, mashing a button on the controller. A month ago she would have been comforted by the reminder of Elsa's presence, only one wall away. As it stands, she thinks it makes the perfect soundtrack to the torture chamber of her life.

It also is effective audio camouflage for the red Corolla rolling into the driveway.

"ANNA THERESE ARENDELLE!"

Shrieking, Anna lunges off the sofa, trips on the coffee table and flops onto the carpet. "What the hell, Rapunzel?"

"There you are! You're not busy! You're watching a freaking cupcake reality show instead of hanging out with your friends!" Rapunzel's chest heaves like a raging bull's.

"So what?" Anna groans, rubbing her bruised shins.

"So now you have no choice. I don't know why you've been dodging all of us for the last three weeks, but this ends now."

Sometimes Anna thinks that all those theater productions get into Rapunzel's brain a little too much. She opens her mouth to speak, but her cousin gets there first.

"And don't you dare tell me you can't because I know your parents are out of town tonight, and clearly you have no plans, unless it's with a sketchy boyfriend you don't feel comfortable introducing to your friends, in which case that is like a flashing-neon-warning-sign to break up with him immediately—"

"Rapunzel! I don't have a sketchy boyfriend." Or an illegal girlfriend, as the case may be.

"Good." Rapunzel crosses her arms. "Now are you sure?"

"Yes! I'm sure," Anna snaps.

Rapunzel continues her speech as if Anna's mouth never moved. "Because I won't judge you if you do, you just have to break up with him right now."

"Why are you so convinced that I have a boyfriend?"

"Why else are you being so secretive and kicking Kristy to the curb?" another voice responds. She didn't even notice Eugene coming in.

"That's right," Rapunzel declares. "So break up with him now."

"Anna's breaking up with someone?" Elsa stomps into the entryway of the living room, covered in ice dust and wearing thick work gloves and her single pair of tattered pants. Anna wonders what happened to those jeans.

"I'm don't have a boyfriend," Anna snaps, forgetting that she and Elsa are on a strict no communication policy.

When her sister pulls the clear goggles off her face, they leave red lines against the pale skin around her eyes. Usually Anna finds this endearing, but right now she wants to tell Elsa how stupid she looks.

"You can tell us if you can do—" Rapunzel starts.

"She doesn't. I would know." Elsa turns towards the kitchen, ever the gracious hostess. "Would you guys like some water? I think we have some soda somewhere."

"Some Coke would be—"

"We don't have time for that, Eugene," Rapunzel breaks in. "We have to leave like right now."

"You're going? Right now? Thank god." Anna sighs and sinks back into the sofa.

"You're coming with us."

"Wait, what?

"We're leaving. Now. With you."

"Why? Where are we going?"

"Mean cousins who ignore their friends for weeks at a time aren't entitled to that sort of information."

"This isn't a spy movie." She glances over at her sister, who watches their interactions blankly. Either she could play along with whatever adventure Rapunzel and Eugene have planned or she could sit and ignore Elsa for another night. "You know what? Fine. Let's go."

Surprise spreads across Rapunzel's face. "Really?"

Her boyfriend looks significantly more disappointed. "Aw. So we won't need the handcuffs?"

"Handcuffs?" both Arendelle sisters echo, aghast. A blush rises in Elsa's cheeks. Immediately, Anna is arrested by the thought of Elsa and handcuffs, and it is not an okay thought to be having while her cousin and her cousin's boyfriend are in the room.

"Pretend you didn't hear that," Rapunzel sniffs, thwacking Eugene in the back of the head.

"Ow. What was that for?" he whines, rubbing the back of his skull.

Rapunzel brushes off his complaint. "Well, great. Let's go. We're definitely going to be gone for at least a few hours so you'll have the house to yourself, Elsa. Don't worry, we'll get her back before your parents. See you on the 4th!"

"Uh, right. Bye, Rapunzel, Eugene." A pause in which Anna struggles to put on shoes while Rapunzel is tugging her out the door. "Have fun, Anna."

Startled, Anna looks up and nearly topples over, but Elsa's already turned away, shuffling towards the garage.

* * *

 

It's weird because they're at the mall, but walking in the opposite direction of the arcade. Anna hopes to god that they're not going shopping because she hates shopping almost as much as Eugene does, and she's pretty sure that the only money she has on her is the twenty her father handed for pizza before she left that evening.

Maybe she should call Elsa to let her know that she has the money, but chances are her sister won't even think of eating dinner. Maybe that's another reason to call Elsa, to remind her to eat something. But Anna can't bring herself to unlock her phone and do it. Besides, there are leftovers in the fridge.

Meanwhile, Eugene and Rapunzel ply her with food, clearly determined to make sure she enjoys herself. For their sake, and to her own relief, she lets herself be swept up in the crowds and the bustle. It's such a relief to be out of the house. She doesn't know why she didn't do it sooner.

They grab pretzels and make their way to the mall center where Rapunzel says they're meeting up with Merida. Eugene doesn't say much of anything, absorbed in what must be a truly profound texting conversation on his phone. To her surprise, Rapunzel leaves him alone, and Anna figures whatever it is must be important. As they approach, Anna notices that there's some sort of platform in the center.

"They've got an open mic night happening," Rapunzel announces cheerfully. Come on. Let's get some decent seats."

From the front row Merida waves frantically at them, waves of hair bouncing. "Hurry up!" she shouts over the girl singing at the microphone. Immediately she is shushed by five different people.

Rapunzel drags her through the crowd, deposits her in the empty seat that Merida has saved in the first row and then disappears.

"Where are you going?" Anna hisses, but Merida grabs the top of her head and rotates it toward the stage. "Kristoff?" She gapes in disbelief. "What is Kristoff doing up there? With his ukulele?"

"Shut your face for a second and listen."

"Hi." Kristoff says into the microphone. "I'm not really a performer or a musician really. Um. But I've kind of got something I want to say, so just bear with me. I'll only take a minute of your time."

He spots Anna and Merida in the front row and give them a nervous twitch of his lips. Anna smiles and waves encouragingly. She's heard Kristoff play the ukulele and the guitar before. He learned from his father and never had much of an interest in playing anything other than old country songs and stupid couplet he made up on the fly, but maybe he's decided he wants to start a band or something. "Good luck," she mouths.

"Reindeers are better than people," he sings. Anna rolls her eyes indulgently as some of the crowd chuckles. Most seem perplexed, but not in a mean-spirited way.

"I always thought that was true."

At least Kristoff has a nice voice, and he doesn't ruin it by trying too hard to sound intense or breathy.

"But I've known you so long, and I can say in this song, that no one is better than you."

Oh god, he's turned it into a love song. It's so cheesy Anna almost feels bad for him. Sweet, but cringe-worthy.

"You always smell better than reindeers."

Someone needs to give Kristoff advice on song lyrics before his next performance. Groaning under her breath, Anna resolves to have a heart to heart with him.

"You're prettier than the autumn leaves."

At least that one isn't half bad. Though it seems totally out of place.

"Kinder than nurses. Sweeter than roses."

Kristoff stares directly at Anna. Snickering and shaking her head, she gives him a thumbs up.

"Won't you come see a movie with me?"

A smattering of applause breaks out.

Pulling the microphone a little closer, Kristoff clears his throat. The look he keeps giving Anna is getting a little weird. Merida is perched at the edge of her seat, grinning maniacally. Anna knows something must be up. her gaze darts between Merida and Kristoff. Kristoff is still staring at her. It couldn't be.

He brushes his bangs from his eyes and speaks haltingly. "So, uh, Anna, will you be my girlfriend?"

Collectively, the crowd sighs, "Aw," and cheers. Kristoff beams. Somewhere, behind her, Rapunzel is screaming her head off for Anna to go up there and kiss him.

Anna is frozen to her seat. Merida yanks her up, shoves her towards the stage. Kristoff reaches a hand down to help her up, and maybe Anna's been spending too much time with Elsa lately because she can only think of one thing to do.

She runs.

Three escalators and a twelve turns later, Anna is thoroughly lost. Luckily, the mall is filled with signs pointing to half a dozen exits, but Anna doesn't know which one she would even go to. Her phone buzzes again, texts, calls, even emails from Merida, Rapunzel and Eugene crowding her lock screen. She flinches, and for the first time in seven month turns the thing fully off.

Why did he have to go and do  _this_? He's Anna's old reliable, her partner in Pokémon games and pointless adventures. He's simple, transparent, a comforting summer breeze in the midst of Elsa's cold inscrutability. She thought he found their friends' insistence that they were soulmates as ridiculous as she does. But apparently she misread him. She forgot that everyone has layers and secrets. Even Kristoff.

She doesn't have her car with her. She can't go home with Rapunzel and face the inevitable question: why? Her parents are out of town and at a fancy dinner function. The last thing she wants to do is call Elsa. So Anna ducks into a department store, biding her time. Eventually, she'll cave and call Rapunzel and head home completely stone-faced under the barrage of questions, but until then, maybe something here will distract her.

Mostly, she just remembers why she hates department stores. The smell, the lighting, the racks and racks of clothes that Anna doesn't know where to start with. Losing Elsa in the furniture section. The only person who made department stores fun was Ella Cinders and her ability to talk her way in and out of any purchase. She chatted up store clerks, danced through the changing rooms, and compared and contrasted tops, prices, and shoes like a general reviewing his troops and supply lines.

The nostalgia brings an unexpected smile to Anna's face. Utterly bored with the jungle of clothing, she wanders into the home décor section. She pauses, lingering over bowls and canisters far longer than necessary, grateful for something to occupy her hands and eyes. Her eyebrows twitch at the snail baskets, and she snorts at statuettes of frogs playing poker.

But it's the colorful—in more ways than one—wall hangings that actually end up taking her mind off of the insanity of her life.  _I want to be the person my dog thinks I am. Keep calm and go get Mom. I am silently correcting your grammar. Dear Karma, I have a list of people you might have missed._ For the most part, Anna rifles past the genuinely heartfelt messages.  _The best Mom in the world lives here. Dance like no one is watching. So lucky to have known someone like you._ Anna's had enough heartfelt emotion for the rest of her life. It feels good just to chuckle.

"Miss, we're closing in fifteen minutes."

Nodding her thanks to the store associate, she turns back to the display rack. Her hand stills over a square frame in blue.  _Tread softly because you tread on my dreams._

An old memory flickers: Elsa, stubborn as a mule, insisting no, this is not a love poem.

She never did get her sister a birthday present. Her hands are shaking, but before she knows what she's doing, she scoops up the wood-framed sign and hurries to the checkout, fingers fumbling in her pockets for that twenty dollar bill. This her chance, maybe, to talk to Elsa, to figure out this craziness between them, to seize their happily ever after.

"Anna?"

Disconcerted, she looks up into a pair of surprised blue eyes. "Ella? You work here?" It's Ella Cinders, all right, dressed conservatively in black and white with a little gold tag on her chest.

With an awkward smile, she bobs her blond bun up and down. "Uh, yeah. Do you want me to ring that up for you?"

"Sure," Anna says feeling like the world has just slapped her upside the head.

"How've you been?" Ella asks as they march towards the sales counter.

"Good. You?"

"Same old, same old. Gosh, it seems like we haven't talked in forever. Isn't Elsa going to college this year? Where's she going?"

"Weselton. Um, how's your father?"

"Same old, same old," Ella repeats, rolling her eyes impishly.

"Any chance I could get that wrapped?" Anna says swiftly before Ella can start another line of conversation.

"Of course." Ella pulls a roll of wrapping paper out from under the counter. "You want a card too?"

"You have those?"

"Sure. For an extra dollar fifty. Happy birthday, congratulations, or generic?"

"Happy birthday."

"Elsa's?" Ella asks knowingly.

Suspicious, Anna stammers, "How do you know?"

Ella snickers as she retrieves a mostly plain, white greeting card with the name of the department store printed across the front. The words "Happy Birthday!" are more of a byline than anything else.

"I was your best friend in middle school. I know these things."

Anna flips the card open, at a complete loss as to what to write. "God, middle school," she mutters, buying herself some time.

"Yeah, middle school. I was such a little bitch in middle school."

Anna chokes on the air in shock. "What? Um-wait. What did you say?"

Laughing at Anna's sudden discomfiture, Ella rolls her eyes again. "You know what I said, and you know it's true. Whatever. You were always too nice for your own good. Done with that card yet?"

Still staggered by Ella's offhanded admission, Anna dazedly scribbles:

Dear Elsa,

Happy birthday!

Love,

Anna

It's probably the most underwhelming card Elsa will ever receive but at least it's done.

"Here."

Ella tapes the card to the top of the package and smiles at Anna. "We should catch up some time. Who knows where we'll be next year? I'll give you my number."

"Uh, right. That sounds good." To Anna's surprise, it actually does sound good. This more mature Ella seems down-to-earth and friendly and tolerable. It's not like she's going to be talking to Kristoff any time soon. She pulls out her phone to take Ella's number and then sheepishly remembers that it's still powered off. "Actually. Take mine."

"Okay. I'm getting off in a couple minutes. Want to walk with me to the parking lot? Assuming we're in the same parking lot."

Anna wonders if Rapunzel's even in the mall any more. She should text her to let her know she's okay. Anna doesn't.

"Actually, you think you could give me a ride home?"

"Sure."


	10. Aesthetics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that. 
> 
> The reality chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bubble-bursting chapter. The chapter where I make my life way more difficult than it needs to be. The 1/6 of the entire story chapter.

10\. Aesthetics

It's dark by the time Ella deposits her in front of her house. Anna is restless, wrapped box clenched tight in her fingers.

"So yeah, if you want a job, I'll tell my manager you're good."

"Thanks," Anna mumbles, coming out of her stupor. "No, really thanks. For the ride and everything."

"Don't worry about it. Old friends, right?"

"Right."

"Goodnight. I'll see you around."

"Goodnight."

There's a car parked along the curb near her house, but she can't tell the make and figures it's somebody visiting the neighbors. The trees are still darker than the sky, so she can't be that late. Her parents are still a couple of hours off, at least, and she knows Rapunzel is probably still bombarding her phone. She wonders how much simpler it would have been to say, "Yes. Sure. I'll see movie with you."

They would be in the movie theater now. She and Kristoff. What would she have done if he tried to hold her hand? It makes her limbs heavy, imagining how abandoned he must feel. She could have at least said something, nice and gentle. But she had felt crushingly trapped. Why did he have to make it so public? All those eyes demanding that she play the role. She must have looked like an idiot running out like that. He must have looked like an idiot standing there with his ukulele. Maybe they were made for each other after all. Both of them idiots.

She definitely shouldn't have run.

She was caught off guard, still teetering from her outing with Elsa, from their kiss and Elsa's fresh rejection. Next time she sees him, she'll do the responsible thing, sit down and talk with him. She promises herself. For now, she'll just put off "next time" for as long as possible.

For now, she needs to focus on Elsa. The birthday gift will be her white flag, her bait, and her glove in the sand. This is her chance to force Elsa to confront their…situation for better or worse. But Anna has a hard time contemplating worse. Instead her chest swells as she imagines the two of them reconciling, for good this time.

"Damn, this stupid lock." With an almighty yank, she rips her key free of the sticky lock and steps inside. The house is shadowy, but she can hear the TV blaring some thriller. Elsa doesn't watch much TV, and Anna doesn't remember turning it off when she left. So her sister is probably back in the garage. Squaring her shoulders, Anna strides towards the garage door.

And chickens out.

She should turn the TV off first, right? Because if she and Elsa do have a heart-stopping, soul-bursting encounter, then the last thing they'll want to worry about is turning off the television.

She kicks off her shoes before she steps onto the carpeting. The TV is louder than normal. Maybe Elsa is trying to listen from the garage. Maybe she'll come out when she hears it turn off, pulling those plastic goggles back to reveal her blue, blue eyes. Maybe —

The soothing warmth which has been rising up through Anna's chest suddenly twists, sears, and snags in her throat. A strange shape rocks back and forth on the couch. The light from the TV gleams over naked skin. Anna can see muscles, calves, thighs, way, way too much.

 _And he's sooo hot_ , Rapunzel's voice echoes teasingly in the back of her mind.

No. It's just ugly. The whole scene is just lewd and grotesque and—

Anna might wretch. Before she realizes what she's doing, she's standing next to the couch whaling on this stupid naked body with Elsa's birthday package, and of course it's fucking Hans, on top of her sister and—

"Fuck! What the—"

"Anna?!"

"I can't believe you!" she screams almost hysterically, voice cracking. The lights flash on in a dazzling blast. "What are doing?"

Hans gapes soundlessly, hiding his naked body mostly behind Elsa and one of the couch pillows, torn between fury, panic, and embarrassment. His girlfriend, though redder than a tomato, manages to inject an admirable amount of cool venom into her reply.

"I think it's clear  _exactly_  what we were doing." Elsa stares resolutely at a space behind Anna's shoulder, while she tugs her dress from its place on the floor until it covers most of her body like a blanket. "I hope you don't need further explanation."

"With  _him_?" Anna can't keep the disgust from thickening in the air around them. Even so, her eyes rove helplessly over the milky skin left exposed.

Steel bares itself in Elsa's voice. "Who  _else_  am I supposed to do it with, Anna?" she snaps, each syllable perfectly enunciated.

By contrast, Anna's words tumble over themselves, like a pack of hunting dogs, slavering and jostling for top spot. "I don't know,  _Elsa_! Maybe you could have some fucking consistency for once. Or maybe you could at least not spread your legs on the living room couch. Like a-a—"

Anna can't do it.

God. She can't fucking do this.

"I didn't realize you'd be home so early," Elsa says stiffly into Anna's dangling silence.

Anna chucks the birthday present at the wall behind the couch. Elsa flinches, hair falling into her face.

"Happy late birthday."

* * *

 

Downstairs is quiet. They must have switched the TV off. Anna buries herself in her pillow, but when she hears footsteps in their foyer, her curiosity gets the better of her.

"I'm sorry about tonight." Anna nearly blocks her ears off again at the sound of Hans ingratiating voice.

"It's not your fault," Elsa says softly. "We probably should have been paying more attention."

Without missing a beat, Hans chimes in. "It's hard to pay attention when you're so beautiful."

Caving to her impetuous fury, Anna flings a few hardcover novels against the opposite wall of their bedroom. The thud covers up Elsa's response. Silence for almost a full minute, until Hans opens his mouth again.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah."

"I love you," Hans says. Anna freezes, clutching a particularly heavy dictionary to her chest, waiting for Elsa's response.

"You too."

The dictionary makes the loudest crash yet.

After the front door clicks shut, Elsa's footsteps start up the staircase. "Anna?" She pads into the bedroom. Anna rolls away onto her bed and looks out the window. "Anna."

She gathers the blankets more tightly around herself. "What?" she answers sullenly.

"What's this?" Elsa asks cautiously.

"What's what?" Anna refuses to tear her eyes off the trees in their backyard.

"This."

It feels like surrender to turn around and look at the object in Elsa's hand. Anna resents every second of it. "That's your birthday present."

Elsa's fingers tighten on the wrapping paper. "Can-should-do you want me to open it?"

"What does it matter to you?"

In lieu of a response, Elsa sits down next to her. A little piece of Anna wants to shove her sister off  _her_  bed. The rest of her wants to throw her arms out for a comforting hug. She settles for squeezing the blankets.

Setting the package down, unopened, Elsa finally says, " _You_  matter to me."

"Really? It doesn't feel that way." Her sister has no reply. "Because it kind of feels like you just do whatever you know will hurt me the most."

"I'm not trying to."

"Then what was that? Having sex with Hans? That's how much you care?"

Hackles rising, Elsa bores a hole into the back of Anna's skull with her cold eyes. "It's not like I thought you were going to come home and watch."

"Trust me, I don't need to watch you get it on with  _him_. What were you thinking?"

I was thinking," Elsa cut in, "that  _he_  is my boyfriend, and generally, that's what you do with your boyfriend."

"On the couch?"

"Where would you rather I do it? The kitchen counter? Here?"

Anna glances at their room,  _their_  space since Anna was three years old, strewn with flak from Anna's closet on one side and spillover from Elsa's desk on the other. "Definitely not here." She sighs angrily. "You couldn't have done this at his house?"

"He has twelve older brothers, Anna. They're always coming in and out. Despite what you seem to think, I'm not an exhibitionist."

The humor loosens something in Anna's chest.

"Oh, come on. The quiet ones always have a kinky side."

Elsa straightens up abruptly, and it's hard to tell whether she's blushing or not in the dark. "You've been watching too many movies."

"Yeah right," Anna scoffs. "Why else would you do it on the couch when we have a perfectly good guest bedroom?"

"Next time we'll use the guest room, okay?"

Just like that, the muscles around Anna's heart snap taut again. "Next time?"

Sensing the change in tone, Elsa hesitates before speaking. "He's my boyfriend."

"Have you done it before?" Anna asks in as neutral a tone as she can manage.

"Yes."

"How many times?"

"Anna." Warning rises in Elsa's voice.

"Do you love him?"

"Yes." Anna's heart sinks like a leaden weight. "I think so."

Pulling her blanket over head to hide her face from Elsa, she spits out, "What does that mean?"

"It means I care about him. It would hurt if anything bad happened to him."

"That doesn't sound particularly romantic. I meant, 'Are you in love with him?'"

"What's your definition of love then?"

"Wanting someone all the time."

"That sounds more like lust."

"More than that. Wanting all of them." Anna's never had to put how she feels about Elsa into words before, never even tried to tease out the individual strands in her own head. It was all a massive yarn ball of Anna loves Elsa. Now, trying to pick out where it leads, how it starts, whether it stops, Anna can't help but feel stupid and immature. "Wanting their happiness more than your own, their needs before yours. Wanting to see them smile. I don't know. Wanting them to see the best in you. Wanting to be first in their life."

"Some of those seem…contradictory."

Elsa's judicious tone does little to mollify Anna's frustration. "Well, I'm not a love expert. It just seems like you should fucking know if you're in love with someone," she grumbles.

"Don't swear."

Anna glares.

Elsa sighs before retorting, "When you fall in love with someone, there isn't a big, flashing sign that goes off and says 'Hey, your current levels of caring and devotion qualify you for the next level of commitment and intimacy. You are officially in love.'"

"Of course not. But you should still know whether you're in love."

"It's not a single moment. I don't think it is anyways."

"Then what's  _your_  version of love?"

"What kind of love?"

"Falling in love. The love you're supposed to feel with your significant other. What does it mean to you?"

It takes Elsa a long time to answer. "It's a gradient. On one end is hate and on the other end is love. And your feelings fall somewhere along there. Hate. Disgust. Dislike. Like. Friendship. Family. Love. People shift along the spectrum as you start to invest more or less time and regard into them. It eventually just…becomes love."

Anna snorts.

"Yeah, I don't know," Elsa admits. "But it's not like your ideas are any more cohesive. I have a better question for you. What do you do if you fall in love with someone who doesn't love you back?"

Anna can't tell whether it's a jab or a genuine query. "You do whatever it takes to make them happy."

"How romantic," Elsa remarks drily. "What if they'd be happier if you quit? Somehow I can't imagine you letting someone go just because they don't love you back. You're pretty persistent"

"I'd leave you alone if it would make you happy."

"Then why don't you?"

"You're not happy."

Elsa pauses. Anna waits for the denial.

It never comes. "I can learn," Elsa says instead.

Anna's head jerks up slightly. It's the closest Elsa's ever come to acknowledging the reality of their situation.

"I  _am_  happy. Or I was until this week. Now everything's messed up again."

Maybe it's the protective darkness of the room, maybe it's guilt from being caught in such an intimate situation less than an hour earlier, but Elsa is being more honest and open with her than she has in years. Anna has to take advantage of it. Shaking the blanket off of her shoulders, she reaches for Elsa's hands. "Elsa. I love you."

Elsa squeezes her fingers without meeting her eyes. "You know I love you too."

"No. Elsa. I'm  _in_ love with you."

"What's the difference?" Elsa says tersely, trying to tug her hands out of Anna's grip.

"You know what the difference is, even if I can't articulate it. I-I want to kiss you, Elsa. And spend the rest of my life with you. As more than a sister."

"Anna–" Elsa twists her hands free. Anna grabs her shoulders instead.

"Just say you're in love with me too," she whispers. "I know you are. I just need to hear it. You wouldn't have kissed me if you didn't feel the same way."

"Anna. I'm sorry for…for kissing you." Shuddering, Elsa lurches to her feet, out of Anna's grasp. Her voice is strained but measured. "I am…attracted to you…in a way that isn't healthy for either of us. It's my fault you think you're in love with me. I should never have acted on it. Maybe you  _are_  in love with me, but you'll learn to love someone else…someone you'll have a future with. Until you do, it's probably best that we…leave some space between us." Pale, trembling hands smooth out the wrinkles of her dress. "I'm sorry."

"What are you talking about? Elsa, I'm in love with you. You're in love with me. There's no reason we can't be together."

"We're sisters," Elsa hisses. "Do you not understand what that means?"

"So what? A bunch of people say we can't be together and you're willing to cave just like that? It's not like you raped me. Nobody is getting hurt. We're not in any danger of conceiving a deformed child. We're two people in love. If nobody else can respect that it's their problem, not ours."

"It  _is_  our problem when they throw us in jail! Don't be naïve, Anna. Think about what you're doing with your head for once."

"Don't be a  _coward_ , Elsa. We can stand up to them. They used to arrest people for being gay, but that didn't stop them from falling in love. We just have to be brave."

"Your solution is to start another sexual revolution?" Elsa gapes at her, eyes widening with something Anna doesn't understand.

"If that's what it takes."

"You'll make both our lives miserable." Elsa laughs. The sound is wrong. All chewed up and shrill.

"What would you do if I came out as gay? Would you tell me to 'think about it'?"

"That's different."

"How's it different?"

"Because it's an orientation, not an obsession with your sister. There are plenty of nice girls out there you could have a stable, healthy relationship with if you let go of this fixation."

"Maybe one of the people out there I could have a stable, healthy relationship with is my sister," Anna retorts promptly. "It's not an obsession, Elsa. And I  _have_  to try."

"Any relationship between us will be neither healthy nor stable," Elsa declares flatly.

"Why? Is there some ancient curse that I should know about? Just because we're sisters we'd be highly incompatible lovers? Do you really buy into that?"

"It's that simple."

"How come? If anything, we're probably more compatible. We've grown up and into each other. We know each other a lot better than half the people who are dating at school right now. We share values and experiences. Why won't you at least give us a shot?"

If anything, Elsa seems to draw further into herself. "It wouldn't work, Anna. Just…just let go of it, okay? Move on. There's no point in torturing ourselves with this."

"Really? You're just going to shut it off?"

"We need some space is all." Her voice grows distant, as though she's already creating that space between them.

The thought sends Anna spiraling into either blind panic or blind rage, and she lunges onto the offensive. "I gave you space! For almost three years! Then you go and you kiss me  _again_ , and you decide, well, this is scary, I guess I'll just go back to ignoring Anna for the next three years. Out of sight. Out of mind."

"It's not like that!" interrupts Elsa.

Anna steamrolls forward. "Maybe you don't love me. Maybe it's just your idea of fun to toy with me, but the second I start taking it seriously, you realize you have to go hitch yourself to a boyfriend!"

"I'm not trying to toy with you!" Elsa's chest heaves and her fists clench and unclench themselves. "I apologize if it feels that way. I'll avoid it next time. I'll be better."

"By which you mean you'll avoid  _me_."

"What do you want from me, Anna? Do you want me to pretend nothing happened? Do you want me to break up with my boyfriend for no particular reason—"

"It's not 'no particular reason' if you love me! If you're  _in love_  with me."

"You don't even know what that means."

"Of course, I do—"                                                                                

"Do you not realize how messed up this is? How careful I've been? Every time I'm near Mom or Dad or Rapunzel or anyone else I always—" Elsa chokes off.

"What? Are you dying to tell them that your sister is—"

"I'm scared I'll be attracted to them too."

Elsa's confession falls to the floor and shatters. Anna blinks in shock.

"What? Are you serious, Elsa? You're attracted to…?"

"No. I mean, I don't think I am." Elsa's body collapses and folds in on itself. "But I love them. And I care about them. And I loved you and cared about you. And all it took was one step to cross that line. I won't. I won't do that with anyone else. Or with you. Ever again. I promise."

"Elsa," she murmurs carefully. "You don't have to worry about that. I mean, it's not like you're going to fall in love with Mom and Dad. That would be—"

"Would it be too weird for you? Is  _that_  where you draw the line? You know that when you fall in love and you attach to someone, it's the same chemical that makes mothers love their babies, right? It's all oxytocin. It's the same reward circuits."

"That's—that's different." Anna winces, realizing she's echoing her sister's earlier words. "That's not the same as having chemistry with someone. Or wanting them. You can love someone without being in love with—"

"So you're admitting this is just lust then?"

"It's not just lust, Elsa. It's not dirty or wrong or sinful or whatever you want to call it."

"Maybe not inherently. But it  _is_  destructive."

"Why are you so determined to tear this down? You won't even consider it!"

Whirling, Elsa screams in frustration. "What do you think I've spent the last FIVE YEARS doing?!"

Her anguished shout slams into Anna's face like a wall of ice. The color rushes to her wan cheeks, and she stalks closer to Anna, almost growling, voice filling with malice.

"Do you not understand how impossible this is? What do you want, Anna? You want to kiss me? You want to  _be_  with me in every way?"

The silence between them snaps. "Yes," Anna replies, suddenly feeling small.

"Well, I wanted it too. I spent years trying to imagine the kind of life we could have together, wishing for a happy ending. Guess what. We don't get one."

"What are you talking about?" Anna can't keep her voice from shaking a little.

"What do you want when you grow up, Anna? A family?" Elsa's tone takes on an unnerving, serrated edge, sinister and gentle all at once.

"Yeah. I guess."

"Well, we won't have that."

"What—"

"We won't have kids," Elsa spits out. "We won't come home on Thanksgiving. We'll never have a wedding. We'll lie for the rest of our lives to everyone about who we are."

"You're being melodramatic," Anna responds reflexively. She's never thought that far into the future, too desperate to get  _anything_  from Elsa on any regular day.

"I'm  _not_. What are you going to say to Mom and Dad when you're thirty-five, and they ask whether neither of us are dating anyone? They'll want us to have children and families of our own, and we'll always be a disappointment."

"Thirty-five? You're worried about being thirty-five? And children? And there's no reason we can't have children. We'll just adopt or use a donor—"

"And do we tell the child that his grandparents are dead so that he'll never have to know we're sisters? Or does one of us get to be the strange aunt who lives in the house? Can you imagine hiding something like this from your child for the rest of your life?"

Anna tries to pull the reins from her sister's hands, to yank this derailed train back on track. "Who says we have to hide anything? Why can't we just—"

"When would be a good age to tell him that? Too young and he won't know to keep his mouth shut. Too old and he'll be disgusted. Not to mention we'd be setting him up as a pariah."

"You don't know that! There's nothing wrong with raising a child not to judge love!"

"And what if he wants to have sex with one of us when he gets older? What do you tell him? No, you can't do that with Mommy, it's wrong?"

"What?! Okay! First of all, why is our hypothetical child male—"

"I'm using it as a neuter pronoun!" Elsa screams, her fervor leaking into her usual composure.

"—and secondly…what the hell are you talking about? What child wants to have sex with their parent?"

"They exist. There was a famous professor at Columbia who was having an apparently consensual affair with his biological daughter. Is  _that_  too wrong for you?"

"Whoa. Well, it's weird. But—" Anna shifts her weight uncomfortably. The mere idea of seeing her parents naked is enough to make her feel sterile.

"And we're not?"

"Look, that's beyond  _us_ , okay?" She takes a deep breath before forging ahead. "And I guess if they're happy together, just let them be happy together."

"They ruined their family. How do you think his wife and her mother feels? How can they ever face their relatives again?"

"That was an affair! We're not cheating on anybody!"

Suddenly, Elsa deflates. "I am."

The words die in Anna's throat. She hasn't even considered that their…interactions are ruining Elsa's moral character.

"Okay. But it's not like he's a parent or anything. He's just a boyfriend." And in Anna's world, Hans would mean nothing. But he means something, a  _lot_  of things, to Elsa. So as much as Anna would like to disregard him, she can't.

"And I'm cheating on him." Elsa stumbles to her bed and sits, sucking in a long shuddering breath.

"Hey, it's okay." It's Anna's turn to approach her sister, to rest her palm against a cold shoulder. With a shiver, Elsa grabs her hand and pulls it off.

Why can't Elsa just break up with him? For months he's been nothing but a thorn in Anna's gut, a rival unworthy of compassion or sympathy. But when it comes down to it, he's never done anything to deserve of what the two of them are doing to him now. As far as they know, he's never been disloyal, abusive, or even unsupportive.

"Anna," Elsa starts solemnly. "Please listen to me. I love you. I will always love you. But we don't have a future together. It's not worth destroying the rest of our lives over some childish infatuation. So let's not. Just be my sister."

It hurts too much to look at Elsa's face, earnest and sad and tired all at the same time. Simultaneously breathtaking and heartbreaking. Involuntarily, her fingers clench around Elsa's.

"So what?" she challenges after a few seconds, attempting to instill some fire into her words. "Do you and  _Hans_  really have a future? Do actually think you want to marry him someday? Have a normal kid with a happy life?" Even to her own ears, the defiance sounds hollow.

Elsa's voice is infinitely light as she smashes it. "No. But I could. That's more than I have with you."

* * *

 

After that Anna decides she'd better apply for a job. Because at least then she won't have to sit in the same house as Elsa all day long, having a sledgehammer slam into her heart every time she hears her sister's work boots clomping into the kitchen for a glass of water.

Ella's manager, Henry, rushes Anna through the interview process on account of being perilously short-staffed ever since some guys named Sullivan and Mike quit. The amount of time he spends muttering about those "no-good-bastards" during the interview is somewhat perturbing, but Anna figures it could be worse. He could be perpetuating the nightmares of small children, not just accusing his former employees of larceny under his breath. Either way, Anna will definitely be giving two weeks’ notice before she leaves.

Her parents are so pleased about her job at Randall's Home Furnishings and Apparel, they happily assign her the truck full-time. It's one of those HAH! moments where Anna is supposed to gloat about getting the keys to the car and Elsa is supposed sulk and mutter about favoritism, but both the sisters are noticeably subdued when the announcement is made.

"Perhaps now is a good time to mention that we've canceled our trip to Myrtle Beach this year and instead we're going deep sea fishing in the Arctic," their mother remarks with an arched eyebrow. Anna doesn't have the energy for a rejoinder or even a smile.

"You okay, kiddo?" her father asks.

"Tired. Need more sleep."

Which is true. Anna's simply failing to elaborate that she's so sleep-deprived because lying in the same room as the sister she longs after, the sister who all but confessed to requiting her love, the sister who is such a goddamned infuriating realist it makes Anna lose her mind is not conducive to restful thoughts.

But maybe having a job will take her mind off the fact that Elsa's prediction for their future is probably right.

She spends the first day following a guy named Ralph around the storage area of the store. Apparently her first few days will revolve around stocking shelves. Ralph gives her a tour of the store, pointing out the location of every appliance, fake plant, and article of clothing. When they pass by the display of wall hangings, Anna averts her eyes and stares at the pile of lampshades to her left.

Ella waves at her as she arrives for her shift.

"Hey, Anna! You got the job."

"I noticed," Anna replies wryly. For what feels like the first time in forever, she cracks a smile. Everything is so much less suffocating outside her house.

"I guess I'll be seeing a lot of you."

"Yeah." Anna kicks herself into small-talk mode. "Ralph was just showing me where everything is."

"Oh, Ralph," Ella says airily, fingers fluttering. "He's such a sweetie, but you know he's got a little…"

"A little…?" Perplexed, Anna stares at Ella's worldly grin, feeling like she's in middle school again and listening to the queen bee explain some heretofore nameless part of the male anatomy.

"You know…" Ella makes some sort of gesture with her hands and her head that leaves Anna's eyes spinning in circles.

After a long day of shuffling merchandise about, standing around bored and pretending to be busy, Anna clocks out at 6. She can't tell whether she's energized or fatigued from the new experience.

Time to go home and spend the evening tiptoeing around her sister with their parents standing as an increasingly concerned buffer between them.

Definitely fatigued.

"Hey, how was your first day in the real world?" her mother asks as she pushes through the front door.

"Real. Boring. Good. Real boring, but good." It's strange how normal Anna can sound even with Elsa only a few walls away. Anna's not messed up, is she? Being in love with Elsa doesn't automatically doom her to derangement or a totally defective family life if she can still have nice conversations with her mother, right?

She smiles, and the motion stretches easily onto her face. With a cheerfulness she hasn't felt in days, she strides into the kitchen where the smile promptly drops from her lips.

"Kristoff?"

"He's here," her mother informs her chirpily and belatedly.

Anna's best friend (can he even be her best friend any more?) and would-be suitor shrugs self-consciously. "Hey."

Recovering admirably, Anna tries to be friendly and warm in her second greeting. "How are you doing today?" She comes off as campy. Close enough.

"Alright," he says.

Her eyes dart from her mother, sorting through pots in the cabinet, back to Kristoff, who twiddles a baseball cap in his hands.

"So…you want…to go…do…?"

"Yes," he agrees brightly.

"Great."

They skedaddle out the door onto the back patio.

"Have fun," Lena calls out, fumbling with the lid of the steamer.

* * *

 

"What are you doing here?" Anna demands as soon as they're outside.

"Breathing. Standing. Talking to you."

Any other day Anna would be amused.

"You couldn't have given me some sort of warning?"

"Maybe if you ever answered your phone. Be glad I begged Rapunzel not to come and bother you herself."

Struck by a sudden heaviness, Anna leans against the brick wall of her house. "I was trying to avoid you."

"I noticed." His shoulders rise and fall amicably. "How's that going for you?"

Anna deliberately scans his body leaning on the wall next to her. Simultaneously, they snort.

"You tell me," she says finally.

"You never gave me an answer last week."

"Oh. Right."

"Though judging by the way you ran off it can't have been a good one."

"Well—"

Kristoff interrupts her poorly thought out and likely incomprehensible babbling before it can even start. "So before you say anything, just hear me out, okay?"

"Okay," Anna sighs.

"I like you. I really like you."

Anna drums her fingers on the wall behind her, growing more miserable by the second.

"You're pretty and funny and you always know how to have fun. You're resilient. Nothing can bring you down for long. You're my best friend. I think we'd be good for each other.  _Everyone_  thinks we'd be good for each other. I know I'm not Adonis. I'm not…exceptional or whatever and you probably don't think of me as anything but your brother."

The irony of this particular statement is not lost on Anna.

"But I think we'd be happy together. If you'd just give me a chance," he finishes.

It all seems so easy when he puts it like that. A life with Kristoff tastes almost overwhelmingly acceptable. By contrast, rejecting him seems headstrong and idiotic. Anna doesn't want to be a fairy book damsel who wastes her life dreaming of her unrealistically beautiful and superficially compatible prince- or even princess-charming. Kristoff might be her best chance for a happy, simple, healthy family.

Anna tries to picture some distant existence, shared with Kristoff, the kind Elsa insists they can't have each other. Their children would probably be blond, at least for the first few years. Eventually their hair would darken, maybe take on Anna's reddish hue. Whose nose would they have? They'd probably have Kristoff's brown eyes, but maybe their grandchildren would have those mineral blue irises.

Aryanism aside, Anna's always had a soft spot for blue eyes. Not her own. Elsa's eyes.

At that moment, Anna knows, the knowledge swelling in her like a balloon, that if she ever marries Kristoff, she'll wish that she'd chosen Elsa instead, even if marriage—much less genomic mixing—is impossible for them. And there's a chance that Elsa's right. In a few years, this constant churning in her gut that starts whenever her sister enters a room might settle. She could fall in love with someone else entirely, put this epoch of her life behind her, a teenage fantasy to be reminisced upon during summer nights when she's thirty-five and married to someone her parents can approve of.

But right now, this love (this  _infatuation_  if that's what Elsa wants to reduce it to) is real and painful and constricting. Anna can't pretend it doesn't exist.

And when she sees Kristoff waiting on her, his face just as heartfelt as Elsa's has ever been, she can't imagine finding him beautiful. Not if he were a not if he was ripped secret agent instead of a farm boy. Not if he were wearing a tux rather than oversized T-shirt and khaki shorts. Not if he were her brother.

He's wonderful, sure. But he doesn't dazzle Anna, doesn't bewitch her with Ella's charismatic grace. His lopsided charm was never as recklessly provoking as Merida's toothy smile. And even his unflappable hands, which know precisely how to saddle a reindeer, put together a toolshed, and carve little totem poles for his brothers, have never been so adroitly, achingly  _beautiful_ as Elsa lurching around a chunk of ice with a chainsaw that might be too big for her.

It makes Anna a little sad, realizing that it will never be Kristoff. She's figured out by now that she's gay, but it's never really been an issue before. "Gay" was just a little secret whispered in the back of her head. Something that maybe influenced her choice in television when no one else was in the room. This is the first time it's ever affected the course of her life.

"Anna?"

"Kristoff." She opens her mouth. Closes it. Works her jaw. "I think…"

"If you say no, it's okay. I'll be fine. I won't stop trying, Anna. I mean, I won't push you into anything. But I'll always be here for you if you need me. For anything."

Before she loses her nerve she expels the sentence from her mouth. "I think I'm gay."

* * *

 

Kristoff asked if she wanted to talk about it. Well, at first, he was stunned and speechless, but after  _that_  he asked if she wanted to talk about it. Anna replied no, maybe later, all the while aware that they'd probably never really sit down and talk about it. But he turned and smiled encouragingly as he walked down the street back to his house. So Anna is hopeful that it'll all work out.

Is this what it means to come out? The relief is almost paralyzing. Kristoff  _knows_. Kristoff is the first person to know, other than Anna herself. Yeah, it's hardly her biggest secret but she can't be expected to tell him every—

Wait, does Elsa know? On one hand, of course she knows that Anna has been "infatuated" with her. But they've never directly addressed the question of sexuality.

If Elsa does reciprocate Anna's feelings—which she's 98.7% sure is the case—what does it mean that she's having sex with Hans? The word "experimenting" pops into her head. What if Elsa's right, and they really are just in lust with each other?

Is Anna over-complicating this?

Brain buzzing away nervously with questions, Anna decides to take the straightforward route and clarify to her sister that she  _is_  indeed gay, lesbian, and walking the crooked and winding path and see how Elsa takes it.

The door to their bedroom is propped half-open. A short pep talk later, Anna is stepping through the gap. It'll be the first time either of them has initiated a conversation with the other since their explosive late night talk last weekend. "Hey, Elsa."

Her sister jerks from her place on their window at the sound of Anna's voice, twitching like a jack rabbit. "Oh, hi." Flushing, she stands up hastily and runs her fingers through her hair. Even as her heart melts (Elsa needs to stop being so adorable), Anna can feel her eyebrows lowering in suspicion.

"What were you doing?" she asks.

Elsa brushes off her interrogation. "Nothing. Why are you here?"

"It's  _my_  room too."

"Yes. But why…?" Elsa gestures helplessly at the space between them.

Avoiding each other as become such a habit that Elsa needs to ask why they're in their room together when it's still light out. Exhaustion seeps into Anna's bones. It's been a long day.

"Can we talk?"

Elsa nods wordlessly, moving aside to make room for Anna on the window seat. She's hiding something between herself and the curtains, but Anna chooses to ignore that for now in the face of mounting trepidation.

"I just told Kristoff that I'm gay. I thought I should tell you too."

"I kind of figured," Elsa mutters.

"Hey! I'm having moment here." Anna complains, jabbing her in the side. "I wanted to be explicit."

"I know. I know," Elsa grouses back, nudging Anna with her bony shoulder. Matching grins spill onto their faces. Then Elsa sobers up. "Everything's fine, right? He took it okay?"

"Well, he kind of asked me out last week. And I kind of said no. So at least now he has a reason."

"Is this something we're going to bring up to Mom and Dad?"

"I don't know yet," Anna answers thoughtfully. "Eventually. I haven't really thought it through." At least her mother will stop insisting that she and Kristoff try dating already. Though then she might start demanding that Anna find a girlfriend.

"Let me rephrase that," Elsa begins wryly. "Am  _I_  going to have to explain how you broke the chandelier with the leftover chicken pot pie because you'll be hiding in a closet somewhere?"

"That happened  _once_!" Anna objects as soon as her brain catches up with her sister's speech. "Okay? And there was a hornet! And for your information, no, you will not have to be my ill-fated messenger. I am mature and capable."

She punctuates that declaration by sticking out her tongue. A hiccup of laughter bursts from Elsa's lips. Anna just grins.

"What are you hiding behind the curtain?" she asks finally, remembering Elsa's earlier surreptitious behavior.

"What?"

"You've got something there. Show me it."

"It's nothing," Elsa insists dismissively. Shoving her sister's knee playfully, Anna reaches around her and grapes at the curtains. "Anna! It's nothing!"

"What's this then?" Anna declares triumphantly, hand closing on a hard-edged box. She tugs it out in spite of Elsa's protesting fingers on her wrist. Her heart nearly stops at the familiar grey-and-gold department store wrapping paper. "Oh."

"I was just…looking at it." Releasing her wrist, Elsa reaches for her own elbows, clearly uncomfortable. Anna remembers her, barely a week ago, hesitantly asking for permission to open the package. She was so mad then, she wanted to snatch the present back and throw it at a wall until it splintered.

Elsa hasn't opened it. She's been afraid too.

Swallowing, Anna lays it in Elsa's hands. Her sister's eyes glance first at the object in her lap and then linger on Anna's face. "It's for you. Open it."

"Okay."

With her usual controlled dexterity, Elsa runs one finger under the back of the package lifting the tape from the paper. It's always amazed Anna how nimble those fingers are, how the wrapping barely even tears under Elsa's touch. The moment is perfect. Light from the setting sun streaming in behind them. The warmth of Elsa's body right next to her own, so wonderfully close as she leans to watch over Elsa's shoulder. Everything is beautiful.

The little beast in Anna's chest cries out for more contact, intimacy, just one tiny kiss.

But the rest of Anna is weary and ridiculously, pathetically pleased merely to be allowed in Elsa's presence, and it won't jeopardize this perfect moment for anything.

A soft smile curls over Elsa's pink lips as the placard is revealed. "I remember this conversation."

"So do I. Obviously."

They sit on the window seat, near but not quite touching, basking in the glow of each other's presence. Something in Anna's head tries to convince her this is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My rant, copied from ff.net:
> 
> I was actually pretty excited about the conversation between Anna and Elsa in this chapter (which is so, so, so long) because I think a lot of fanfiction just sweeps the huge implications of sibling incest under the rug with a quick "True Love cures everything." (I also find it absolutely hilarious whenever someone reduces Kristoff and Anna's friendship to being like brother and sister in an Elsanna fic.)
> 
> In Arenverse, (family-friendly Disney franchises aside), I think Elsanna is not an overly far-fetched pairing. For one thing, no parents (or, conveniently, relatives) to explain their love life to. European royal weddings based on alliances rather than love lead to very interesting extra-marital lives for real life kings and queens. The lack of social media, or even newspaper syndicates, would make salacious interactions between the queen and her younger sister easier to hide from the common people. Even FDR's affairs in the 1930s were well-hidden from the American public even though it was common knowledge to reporters with White House access. So there would have been less public backlash. (Can I also just point out here that no one in Frozen who is accused of treason actually commits treason?)
> 
> Icest in our modern world is much trickier to pull off. People are expected to marry for love and share their married life with the rest of the world. It gets more complicated when Elsa and Anna have to deal with families. Even if they're relatively unimportant, if it ever got out, they could very easily find themselves on national television. (I'm thinking of all the stories about teachers and students having sex). It's also much harder to hide the fact that they are sisters. (It's not like moving to another state will change their social security numbers.) In reality, I think that incest, even if not inherently evil, is unhealthy for its participants. Part of the reason it is unhealthy is the stigma. A relationship that is forced to hide itself so thoroughly seems suffocating rather than liberating. And I hope you noticed how isolated Anna gets from her friends as a result of secreting away her feelings for Elsa.
> 
> Anyways...I'm going to try and give them a happy ending. So True Love for the win...even though in real life I hope you realize that fixing all your dreams and aspirations on one person is not healthy.


	11. Dislocate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since middle school, Anna and Elsa have been avoiding each other and feigning normalcy. With Elsa about to leave for college in the fall, Anna realizes this summer is her last shot to change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter that hints at all the stuff that's coming next.

11\. Dislocate

“I love you, Elsa.”

“I love you, Elsa.”

“I love you, Elsa.”

All day, whenever she can get a moment alone, Anna lets the little chant fall off her tongue. It feels wonderful, really. Natural and inevitable. Anna will be shelving vases or sweeping out the storeroom, and the words will leak through her lips, leaving the entire inside of her mouth airy and sweet.

But then, immediately, she’ll whirl around to make sure no one is sneaking up behind her with a microphone and camera.

Paranoia is all it is. She could pass off the statement as almost anything. _I love you, Elsa, but will you please get your clothes off my side of the bedroom? I love you, Elsa, but it’s really annoying when you sing for an hour in the shower. I love you, Elsa, for sharing your chocolate with me. I love you, Elsa; you’re my sister._ Yet Anna can’t shake the feeling that someone will know if they hear her say it. Even once. Completely out of context. They’ll _know_.

For weeks she scours the Internet, looking for countries where an incestuous relationship would be legal. Where an incestuous lesbian relationship would be legal. It’s hard getting the information, especially when Anna is not fully convinced that the NSA isn’t going to expand its area of interest beyond possible terrorist activity.

And even if a relationship with Elsa could be legal in some other country, it doesn’t mean it would be…widely approved of. Not to mention the idea of living in another country is terrifying. How much _is_ Anna willing to give up for this?

One article she stumbles upon links to a promising, clean-looking forum—which goes by the nebulous acronym GSA for “genetic sexual attraction.” Unfortunately they want a fifteen dollar membership fee, and Anna is leery of internet sites asking for money. And she doesn’t have a credit card anyways.

Having exhausted that route without much success, (she loses her nerve before she can dig too deeply into Reddit or the Yahoo forums) she turns to the seemingly simpler task of convincing Elsa they are highly compatible soulmates. Before long she’s lost in the world of personality tests and relationship advice books.

The love books tell her that everyone is either a bully or wimp. Or that she and Elsa need to be compatible on 19 distinct personality factors. The online love tests are nearly useless unless she can trick Elsa into filling them out with her. But they’re better than nothing, so she settles for guessing what Elsa might answer. When one personality quiz tries to compare her to a desert, she finally gives up.

But not before reading a description of Elsa as mousse.

In her desperation, she starts believing in ridiculous things. She’s always been a bit of an optimistic, but she’s never crossed the line into pathetic, windmill-fighting quixotism (at least that’s what she’d like to believe) until now. Then, one Saturday, she finds herself searching through the clovers in their backyard, looking for four leaves. Elsa comes out to join her, and Anna has to stop herself from asking her if she wants to run away together. When Bobby across the street has a birthday party, she nearly crashes the five-year-old’s birthday party so she can blow out his candles and steal his wish.

Things are _stable_ with Elsa. They spend a lot of time in their room, on the window seat, talking, looking out at the backyard. It starts out some time after dinner, they’ll lean up against opposite ends of the alcove and play footsie for leg room.

“Your shin is hard,” Elsa complains after a particularly rough battle.

“My _shins_ are hard?” Anna retorts, rubbing said shin gingerly. “Your kicking is brutal!”

“Sorry,” her sister apologizes. Elsa bites her bottom lip and reaches out a tentative hand.

“I’m fine,” Anna says quickly.

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t worry about me,” Anna smirks. “Worry about yourself.” Her next double-footed kick unseats Elsa completely.

“Mmmpf!” Elsa yelps indignantly from the floor. “Jerk.” Beneath mussed up bangs, her eyes narrow.

Anna sticks out her tongue out, and then suddenly remembers– “Oh yeah! So today, at work, there was this guy—“

Though usually within a few hours, the mood shifts.

Maybe they put on old Powerpuff Girls episodes from Netflix and Anna’ s slouching because she’s kind of wiped out. And maybe as she sinks, she finds her skull inexplicably pressed against Elsa’s shoulder, because, for whatever reason, maybe Elsa’s moved a little closer to the center of the seat. And maybe they just get closer and closer, until they’re pressed together body on body. And maybe since it’s chilly at night and neither of them want to get up for a blanket, they snuggle deeper still into each other.

Anna wonders if this is the right thing to do. She never comes up with a satisfactory answer, so she just does it anyways.

* * *

 

After work, Anna sits in her car, trying to think of a good text to send Elsa. Something that’s maybe a little flirty but not blatantly so. Warm but not aggressively so. Something Elsa can spend a long time staring at when she gets it on her phone. Not that Anna does that. Not at all.

_Hey, I’m coming home. :)_

For nearly a minute, she agonizes over the smilie. Elsa never uses emoticons in her texts. Does she think Anna’s stupid or childish?

_Thunk!_

Anna throws herself right, onto the passenger seat, whirling to face the attacker at her window. Her arms fly up defensively over her face and her heart burns from the adrenaline rush. “What the—“

“Alright, Freckly-Face, I’ve given you enough time to recuperate from your love drama. I want in,” Rapunzel demands, her voice muffles and faint through the glass. In retrospect, she’s not very threatening, barely tall enough to get her entire face up to the glass.

“Rapunzel! I thought you were a serial killer!” Still shaking slightly, she picks her phone up, pulls herself back up to a sitting position, and rolls down the window.

“In daylight?” Rapunzel scoffs, “in a parking lot?”

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to park next to big suspicious-looking vans?”

“So you’re not parked next to a van. Why are you still so spazzy?”

“One could have pulled up,” Anna argued.

“Without your noticing?” Rapunzel remarked skeptically.

“I noticed _something_!” she retorted.

A single dismissive eyeroll. “Do big suspicious-looking vans normally knock on your windshield?”

“You know what I mean!” Anna sighs. “What do you want?”

“I told you already. I want in.”

“In…?” Anna spread her hands impatiently.

“In your car for one thing. It’s annoying talking to you from two feet down,” Rapunzel griped.

“Whatever,” Anna huffs, but she unlocks the truck doors.

She watches uncomfortably as Rapunzel scurries past the front of the truck and hops through the passenger side door. There’s no way Rapunzel’s just stopping by to say hi.

“Alright,” Rapunzel says as she settles into the seat, “spill.”

“Spill what?” Anna stalls. “How did you even know I was here?”

“I asked Elsa where you were—“

“You asked _Elsa_?” Flabbergasted, it’s all Anna can do not to demand every detail of their interaction.

“Yes.” Then, at the sight of Anna’s frozen astonishment, she adds drolly, “She is my cousin. She’s been _my_ cousin longer than she’s been _your_ sister.”

Brain still misfiring on the fact that, oh yeah, Elsa _does_ interact with other people, Anna explodes in a fit of illogical possessiveness, “No, she wasn’t!”

“I’m older by three months. Thus, I’ve been related to her for three months longer.” Anna might choke on disbelief and die. “Now, will you stop avoiding the subject and talk already?” Rapunzel presses.

Opting to avoid a little longer, Anna babbles, “Subject, what subject? Are those new pants?”

“Yes! Now quit that and tell me about what happened with Kristoff!”

With a nonchalant shrug, she fixes her gaze out the windshield. “Nothing happened with Kristoff.”

“That’s the problem!” Rapunzel erupts. “There were supposed to be fireworks! What happened to fireworks?”

“Says who?” protests Anna. “Says _you_? I mean who are you to tell me that I have to date him?”

“I’m your cousin. You haven’t lived a day when I wasn’t your cousin!” Rapunzel interjects. “Why did you turn him down? Come on, Anna, I know it’s a big step, but why the hell not?”

“I didn’t want to. I’m not into him like that!”

“Well, who _are_ you into? You’ve never even dated anyone. Who else are you going to date? You two are like perfect for each other.”

“I don’t want to date anyone,” Anna lies stiffly. “And Kristoff and I are friends. It would be weird to be anything else.”

“You don’t know unless you try,” Rapunzel advises breezily.

“I don’t want to try, and I already know.” This would be a great moment to come out to Rapunzel. She opens her mouth to do it, but the words die in on her tongue. The sun diffracts across her windshield, leaving Anna exposed and public.

“God, Anna, you can be so close-minded sometimes.” At that accusation, the girl in question can’t help but strangle herself on a tortured laugh. “I’m serious,” Rapunzel adds. “It’s like you’re so scared of what might happen, you won’t take a shot on him.”

“I don’t want to date him,” Anna grinds out. “What are you? My mother?”

“What reason do you have for not dating him?”

“He’s my best friend!”

“Great. So you guys already get along. Why not see if you have any chemistry?”

Rapunzel’s tenacity is giving Anna a headache. “Don’t you think I would have noticed any chemistry by now?”

“Not with your attitude.” Frustration percolates through Rapunzel’s usual armor of cheerfulness. “You broke the guy’s heart, Anna. You should have seen his face. I thought he was going to cry.”

Turning away towards to the driver’s side window, Anna mutters, “I don’t like him like that. Was I supposed to pretend?”

“You’re hiding from me, Anna!” Rapunzel half-shouts. “You keep talking in these circles, and you keep avoiding me. Maybe you’re embarrassed to like him, but you don’t have to hide it from me.” Rapunzel’s voice hits a shrill, brittle note. “You don’t have to ignore all my texts and run away or whatever. Forget Kristoff, _why_ are avoiding me? You’ve been so weird this summer. I mean if it’s not heartsickness, what the hell is it?”

In that instant, Anna nearly spills it out all over the dashboard of her car. _I love Elsa._ That stupid chant that’s been fluttering in the back of her throat for weeks. What a relief it would be. Like finally throwing up after trying to hold in all the way across Colorado. Anna still remembers that road trip and the look of horror on Elsa’s face as her skirt was splattered with the contents of Anna’s stomach. The way she’d kept stroking Anna’s head all the way to the rest stop anyways.

_I love her._ She says it out loud, “I love her.” Oh god, she’s lost her mind.

“You love who?”

Irrationally afraid of Rapunzel’s face, she leans her forehead against the steering wheel. “I-I like girls, Rapunzel. I think-I’m gay.” It’s so much harder this time, and Anna doesn’t understand why. For Kristoff it had felt more like a peace offering. For Elsa, simply a confirmation. For Rapunzel, it’s a declaration. Kristoff would have kept it to himself. Elsa would never push her—not with the fragile state of their present relationship. But Rapunzel will make her face it. There’s no going back now.

“Oh. _Oh_. Really, Anna?”

“…yeah.”

“ _Well_ …” Rapunzel finally responds, “I can work with that.”

“Please don’t,” Anna begs. It only takes a peek to confirm the wicked grin spreading across Rapunzel’s face.

“Who’s ‘her’?”

“No one.” Mentally kicking herself for answering too quickly, she plasters a blank look on her face.

“Yeah, right,” Rapunzel scoffs. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it out of you.”

Anna is an idiot.

* * *

 

By the time she escapes home, she’s officially wiped out too.

“Long day at the office?” her father teases at the dinner table.

“Huh?” She glances up from her plate of roast beef. “Oh, yeah.” From her left side, something nudges her foot. She glances at Elsa, who offers her a concerned eyebrow smile and a cocked eyebrow.

“I’m fine,” she assures, a little ball of warmth expanding against the confines of her chest. “Just shelved out.”

“Any plans for the weekend?” their mother asks.

“Uh, I think Rapunzel wants to hang out.”

“That’s good.” Oh, it is definitely _not_ good, but Anna doesn’t say that. She’s said enough for one lifetime. “How about you, Elsa? Are you and Hans doing anything?”

The pressure against Anna’s calf and foot jerks away suddenly as Elsa shuffles in her seat. “Um, no. I don’t think so. We broke up.”

“What? When?” Anna’s father gets there before his younger daughter.

“Uh, Monday, actually.”

“How?” Their mother breaks in. “Why didn’t you tell us? What happened?”

“What did he do?” their father practically growls.

“Nothing! Nothing happened. He didn’t do anything,” Elsa interrupts. “I just couldn’t see a future with him,” something catches in Anna’s throat, “so I thought I’d better end it.”

“Well, are you sure?” Lena Arendelle asks carefully.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Elsa speared a green bean with her fork.

* * *

 

“Do me a favor,” her father says during a Geico commercial, “make sure Elsa’s alright. You know she’ll never tell me if anything’s wrong otherwise.”

“I’m sure she’s okay,” Anna replies as noncommittally as she can manage.

“I worry about her. Your mother does too. Only she worries more that I’m ‘sheltering’ her or something,” he huffs.

“Elsa can take care of herself. She’s better now. Not that she was bad before, but she’s, you know, more confident now.”

“I know. She’s going off to college. And I don’t want Hans trying anything while she’s there.”

“I don’t think he’ll start anything,” Anna put in with a generosity she didn’t know she had. “He seems alright.”

Her father grunts noncommittally.

* * *

 

Anna has lost her third game of Jenga when she finally works up the nerve to enquire, “So what happened with Hans?”

“Nothing. I just didn’t want to be a hypocrite,” Elsa replies as she nudges piece out of its place in tower.

“How very cryptic,” Anna mutters, tapping at each block experimentally.

“I couldn’t see myself with him. So there wasn’t a point.”

“Are you sure? You know I—“

“I’m sure, Anna,” Elsa cuts in with uncharacteristic impatience. “Trust me. I already got the shakedown from, Mom. I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay,” Anna replies, a little taken aback. “I’m sorry. I just-“

Elsa sighs loudly. “I’m sorry. I’m snapping at you for no reason. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“That’s okay,” Anna says amiably. “So, uh. Make anything new lately.”

“Not really,” Elsa half-mumbles, half-grunts. “I’ve been kind of slow lately. Not feeling really motivated. I’ve mostly been helping Geppetto out with his woodwork.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“Good.”

She’s asking stupid questions, questions she doesn’t even want to know the answers to.

_What does this mean for us?_ her fingers drum against the wooden blocks. But she’s afraid of the answer she catches in Elsa’s evasive eyes.

_Nothing. Just be my sister, Anna. Don’t ruin this._

Whatever “this” is, Anna thinks she might be sick.

* * *

 

“Ready for the register?” Ella asks excitedly Monday morning.

“Yep. So ready. I’ve got this. I totally know what I’m doing.” Anna bobs her head with great certainty.

“You mean you won’t need my help?” Ella pouts, turning away theatrically. “Well, in that case, I guess I’ll just—“

“Wait! Maybe I need a refresher!” Anna panics a little.

“Really? But you seemed so sure a second ago.”

“Well,” Anna harrumphed, puffing her chest out like a pelican, “a quick review of the basics, you know, just to confirm the, uh, basics.”

“Whatever you say, superstar.” The blonde plays along, tossing off a quick shrug.

But then Anna can’t hold her dignified bluster much longer and breaks down snorting. With a wide loose smile, Ella sweeps over to the cash register.

“Okay, so for a purchase you just press this button, scan the barcode here. Clothes hangers go in the bin.” For emphasis, Ella kicks the cardboard box. She gestures at a little grey plastic device with weird depression in the middle. “This is for taking the tags off. You just pop it into the slot and it comes off and you throw it over there. Put the items in a bag—we only have plastic.”

After giving the plastic bags a friendly punch, Ella swoops over to the computer. Anna has to press her back up against the register to give her space, not that Ella notices. “After you’ve got everything rung up, click the yellow button, or you can use crtl+p. Then if they pay with cash, this is for the drawer.” She taps the little lever. “Cards you just tell them to swipe themselves. If something doesn’t go through it’s probably just some old lady who thinks that swiping it slowly will give the machine more time to read it. Usually I just swipe it for them. Faster that way. Uhhh, let’s see,” Ella swivels, scanning the counter for anything she might have missed, “if an old lady comes in with her checkbook, you need a driver’s license or some ID. Other than that…smile and be nice. Got it?”

A sudden, blinding smile.

“Yeah…I guess.”

“Oh, don’t look so worried, Anna. You’ll be an expert in no time. You don’t even need to do any returns yet.”

Still feeling like she’s been smacked by a Mac truck, Anna nods dumbly.

In spite of the intimidating volume of information dumped over her head, she manages to stay above water all morning. A few customers are short with her, several are too distracted to notice her, but a surprising majority seem charmed by her cheery, if somewhat frazzled, grin.

Though her cheeks from smiling, Anna refuses to let them sag. It would be rude to smile at one customer and give the next a blank stare—did all those people think she never noticed the way their faces closed at when Elsa shuffled up to the counter? Did they think it didn’t hurt?

“Try not to smash the scanner, Hulk,” Ella comments dryly.

“Huh?”

“You set that down kind of hard there.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Anna gives the scanner an apologetic pat on the head. Not its fault that people are crappy. “I was distracted.”

“Hey, you want to hang out after we’re done?”

“Uh, sure. What did you want to do?”

“I dunno. We’re in a mall, Anna. I’m sure we’ll find something to do.”

Anna hesitates. “I have to let my parents know I’ll be late.” This is, after all, Ella Cinders, middle school mean-girl-extraordinaire. Does Anna actually trust her? It’s one thing to be cordial and friendly at work—if Anna’s learned one thing about being a politician’s daughter, it’s how to shake every hand an return every smile—but another to be friends with this girl again. She’d called Kristoff names and turned her nose up at Elsa. But that was a long time ago.

Anna believes in second chances, in human kindness, in the benefit of the doubt.

“Sure though,” she agrees. “I’ll just call home.”

“Great!” With that, Ella disappears into the aisles.

 


End file.
